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PubMed1993

[Wanderings through ancient medicine].

The character of ancient medicine depends on the concept of nature in ancient science. The development of a rational medical science was part of the historical emancipation of reason from magic and mythology. The great difference between ancient and modern medicine concerns the normative idea of nature in ancient thought versus the mechanical one in modern technology. The article mentions many special features of ancient medicine based on the notion of human nature and nature in general.

Greece, Ancient↗
PubMed1991

Cultural differences and ethical issues in the problem of autopsy requests.

Cross-cultural ethical issues pervade medical care in Texas. This preliminary study concerns the particular issues that arise when an Anglo-American physician requests an autopsy from a Mexican-American family. The study quantified differences in autopsy rates between Mexican-American and Anglo-American patients at one San Antonio hospital. Mexican-Americans had higher rates for patients dying between the ages of 21 and 40, and after 80. Anglo-Americans had higher rates for all other age groups. Differences in autopsy rates between Mexican-American and Anglo-Americans ranged from 5 to 18 autopsies per 100 deaths and varied by age group. The study also involved 33 interviews concerning Mexican-American and Anglo-American culture. Interviewees identified four sources of relevant differences: (1) medicine's professional values, (2) beliefs about the power of medical science to control disease, (3) beliefs about keeping cadavers whole and unmutilated, and (4) beliefs about the sentence of the soul after bodily death. An appreciation of these value differences is the basis for requesting autopsies in culturally sensitive ways.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Arabic medicine and nephrology.

During the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Arabic world was instrumental in fostering the development of the sciences, including medicine. The quest for original manuscripts and their translation into Arabic reached its climax in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, and the dissemination of the compiled texts was facilitated by the introduction of paper from the East. Foremost among the Arabic physicians were Rhazes, Avicenna, Haly Abbas and Albucasis, who lived during the period 950-1050 AD. Their writings not only followed Hippocrates and Galen, but also greatly extended the analytical approach of these earlier writers. The urine was studied and the function and diseases of the kidneys described. Despite the fact that experimentation on the human body was prohibited by religion, some anatomic dissection and observation seems to have been undertaken, and the pulmonary circulation was described by Ibn Nafis. Anatomic illustrations began to appear in Arabic texts, though they did not have the detail and artistic merit of those of Vesalius.

Arabia↗
PubMed1986

How the Report made a difference: reflections on a 15th anniversary.

To mark the 15th anniversary of the Hasting Center Report, six authors who have written for the Report since its beginning comment briefly on an article or a theme from the Report that has had an impact on their thinking or on the way that bioethics has developed as a discipline. The titles of the commentaries are as follows: "In praise of William May's 'attitudes'" (A.M. Capron); "On opening human experimentation to moral debate" (S. Bok); "Learning from Ramsey" (R.A. McCormick); "Toward a science of particulars" (E.J. Cassell); "Challenging the power of codes" (R.M. Veatch); and "Relating moral principles and moral behavior" (D. Callahan).

Academies and Institutes↗
PubMed2002

Stem cell research: a target article collection: Part I--Jordan's banks, a view from the first years of human embryonic stem cell research.

This essay will address the ethical issues that have emerged in the first considerations of the newly emerging stem cell technology. Many of us in the field of bioethics were deliberating related issues as we first learned of the new science and confronted the ethical issues it raised. In this essay, I will draw on the work of colleagues who were asked to reflect on the early stages of the research (members of the IRBs, the Geron Ethicist Advisory Board, and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission) as the field debated the issues of consent, moral status, use of animal tissues, abortion, use of fetal tissue, and the nature and goals of entrepreneurial research. In this new capacity, ethicists weighed the problem of privacy, the role of justice considerations, and the issues of the marketplace in science. At this point, it is clear that far more issues remain unresolved than are settled, that there is largely unexplored territory ahead, and that the single most important task that faces us as a field is a steady call for ongoing conversation and public debate.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1988

Traditional belief and practice among the Pokot people of Kenya with particular reference to mother and child health: 1. The Pokot people and their environment.

In order to provide effective and sympathetic health care in a community, it is essential to have a detailed understanding of the culture. This is particularly true when one is concerned with the health of mothers and their children. The Pokot people of Kenya have developed a social structure and cultural practices which aim to optimize the chance of survival of the community in an often difficult and hostile environment. When examined in detail, some of these practices are seen to be beneficial, while others are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, especially in the area of mother and child health. In recent times, Pokot society has been in a phase of transition, influenced by new opportunities of educational, economic and social interaction, particularly since the completion of a tarmac road through the district in 1983. While many of these changes are undoubtedly beneficial to the community, they have been associated with a disintegration of traditional Pokot society and accompanied by changing patterns of existing diseases, as well as the opportunity for introduction and dissemination of diseases which were previously absent from or rarely encountered in the area.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Abortion on demand.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Abortion, Legal↗
PubMed1992

Spirits and spiritist therapy in southern Brazil: a case study of an innovative, syncretic healing group.

This paper examines the treatment of patients by a group of Spiritist healers in southern Brazil. After describing and analyzing a healing session, the practices are shown to be deviant from conventional Spiritism in two directions: (1) they employ a technique, called apometry, that they claim makes possible the transportation of a part of the patient's body to the astral world where it is treated by disincarnate doctors who do past life regressions; and (2) although a conventional Spiritist disobsession is performed, the healers invoke rival Afro-Brazilian spirits who often are shown to have caused the patient's symptoms. Building on the work of Csordas (1983), I hypothesize that the discourse employed by the healers moves the patient to a new reality or phenomenological world in which s/he is healed "not in the sense of being restored to the state in which s/he existed prior to the onset of illness, but in the sense of being rhetorically 'moved' into a state dissimilar from both pre-illness and illness reality...(Csordas 1983:346)." The new state, in this case, is the world of Spiritism. Unlike the Catholic Pentecostals Csordas studied who already were members of a primary group of believers, however, the patients treated by the Brazilian healers are mostly unaffiliated individuals who face the increasing uncertainty and insecurity of life in disorganized, anomic, urban Brazil. By encompassing modern science on the one hand, and aspects of the Afro-Brazilian traditions on the other, this healing group appeals to the often distraught white middle and lower-middle classes, providing them with therapeutic meaning that in many cases leads to healing, conversion, and the sense of security and safety that often accompanies identifying with and belonging to a religious group.

Brazil↗
PubMed2006

Understanding of and attitude to xenotransplantation among Italian university students: impact of a 3-yr university course.

BACKGROUND: Young people, and students in particular, generally have a positive attitude to xenotransplantation. We reported previously that university students attending their first year approved of the idea of transplanting animal organs into humans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a 3-yr course at various faculties on the university students' understanding of and attitude to xenotransplantation. METHODS: University students in their fourth year at five different faculties of Padua University (Italy), who had previously been surveyed in exactly the same way 3 yr earlier, were re-administered an anonymous 19-item questionnaire on their attitude to xenotransplantation. RESULTS: A total of 453 students completed the fourth year questionnaire (84 males, 369 females; mean age 24.6 yr, range 21-36 yr). Students were attending courses in Medicine (22.1%), Veterinary Science (16.5%), Agriculture (10.4%), Educational Sciences (22.1%) and Psychology (28.9%). In their fourth year, 85% of the students knew that animal organs could, at some stage, be transplanted into humans, 81.5% approved of this idea and 84% would accept an animal organ to save their life if necessary (these percentages were 88%, 78% and 76%, respectively 3 yr earlier). A significantly larger proportion of the students who approved of xenotransplantation were attending science courses rather than art courses, while no differences emerged as regards gender. Those who refused xenotransplantation justified their position mainly on ethical-moral (41.7%) and immunological (35.7%) grounds. CONCLUSION: As in their first year, so too in their fourth, University students were well informed about the feasibility of transplanting animal organs into human beings and those attending science courses were more likely to accept this idea than art students. Approval of xenotransplantation was much the same among fourth year males and females, whereas in the first year, male students had approved more than female students.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Glimpses of the advancement of medical science as depicted in the Mahäbhärata.

The Mahabharata of Vedavyasa is an encyclopaedic work, which has got some importance from the standpoint of Indian medical science also. According to it Ayurveda was a compulsory subject which was taught to everybody. Perhaps, Mahabharata is the first epic which presents the term Ayurveda. The fundamentals of Ayurveda are discussed in it very well. Circulations of blood described here reminds us the same of sushruta samhita. Three types of poisons and a number of metals and jewels have also been given in Mahabharata.

History, Ancient↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Imagining HIV/AIDS: morality and perceptions of personal risk in Nigeria.

The disparity between people's knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the extent to which they take measures to protect themselves is one of the most vexing issues for public health workers and social science analysts. This paper aims to explain some of this discrepancy, using survey and ethnographic data collected among young rural-urban migrants in Aba and Kano, two cities in Nigeria. The paper argues that many young Nigerian migrants do not perceive significant personal risk because they construct the risk of AIDS in ethical and moral terms, projecting immorality and danger onto imaginary others. To understand the way young Nigerians interpret risk, the paper focuses on four related issues: (1) the organization and meaning of sexual relationships; (2) the intersection of gender and ideas about reproduction; (3) the perception of AIDS as a disease without hope; and (4) the importance of religion in young people's framing of moralities and ethical choices about sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Seasonality of vital events in a Pacific Island population.

Analyses of vital data derived from a family record register for the native population of Guam reveal significant variations in births, deaths, and marriages over the period 1901-41. Although lacking marked photoperiod or temperature changes of temperate zones, the tropical island is subject to marked seasonal differences in rainfall characteristic of western Pacific islands. Marital patterns exhibit troughs associated respectively with the Lenten period and with Christmas celebrations. Infant and childhood deaths show close correspondence with rainfall patterns, consistently exceeding expected values during the rainy season (July-November) when conditions are optimal for the spread of communicable and gastrointestinal diseases. Births attain a peak in November, or at the beginning of the more advantageous season for infant health and survival. Seasonality in vital events, reported for many Euroamerican and some African and Asian populations of modern and historical periods, has rarely been documented for native populations of the tropical Pacific. Comparisons of differences in these patterns among different populations in varied environments provide unique opportunities to evaluate causal models of interactions among biological, sociocultural, and physioenvironmental factors.

Delivery, Obstetric↗
PubMed1990

Order and healing: the concept of order and its importance in the conceptualization of healing.

This paper concerns the notion of order and its role in the conceptualization of healing, and therefore its importance to healing itself. It proposes a model of healing in which order is central. The paper begins with an example drawn from Javanese mystical practices which are based upon the concept of the unity of the human and natural orders. The Javanese case provides a metaphor for an expanded notion of order. This prefigures a consideration of the nature of the concept of order in medical anthropology, science, and medicine. The importance of the notion of analogy (and metaphor) in the concept of order and how order may be simultaneously conceptualized in both cognitive and biological domains is also discussed in the paper. The perspective on order and healing developed here goes beyond conventional biomedical categories and provides a basis for the fundamental reconceptualizations necessary for addressing contemporary developments in psychoneuroimmunology, for example.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2000

A response to Dawson's critical analysis of 'spirituality as "integrative energy"'.

Dawson's reply to 'spirituality as integrative energy', particularly his objection to the appropriation of energy as a conceptual descriptor, demonstrates a woefully inaccurate and grossly misleading interpretation of my work. The purpose of this response is to challenge Dawson's assertion that such reformulation effectively strips spirituality of its historical meaning and to provide evidence of its appropriateness. I briefly consider the precepts underlying holism as a moral imperative for professional nursing, the traditional role of spirituality in health and illness, the rise of medical science and its eventual disjunction from metaphysics, and the his torical evolution of nursing. I also comment on the privileged nature of the nurse-client relationship and the social and moral obligation of nurses to engage in holistic practice. Finally, I suggest that the reconceptualization of spirituality as 'integrative energy' represents its dynamic, unifying nature and reassert my contention that 'integrative energy' is an entirely appropriate and eminently suitable definition of spirituality.

Holistic Nursing↗
PubMed2006

American psychology and the religious imagination.

In just three generations, American psychology grew from a fledgling science to a culturally authoritative discipline. Standard accounts of psychology's meteoric rise typically omit what most needs to be illuminated: the resonance between psychological theory and the symbolic universe underlying America's popular religious imagination. This article sketches a cultural history of American psychology by examining how many of its core concepts invoke a metaphysical horizon associated with the nation's heritage of unchurched spirituality.

History, 19th Century↗
PubMed1991

Health perceptions and survival: do global evaluations of health status really predict mortality?

Self-evaluations of health status have been shown to predict mortality, above and beyond the contribution to prediction made by indices based on the presence of health problems, physical disability, and biological or life-style risk factors. Several possible reasons for this association are discussed: (a) methodological shortcomings of previous studies render the association spurious; (b) other psychosocial influences on mortality are involved and explain the association; and (c) self-evaluations of health status have a direct and independent effect of their own. Four-year follow-up mortality data from the Yale Health and Aging Project (N = 2812) are used to explore these possibilities. The analysis controls for the contribution of numerous indicators of health problems, disability and risk factors, and also makes adjustments of standard errors for the complex sample design. The findings favor the third possibility, an independent effect, to the extent that the particular set of psychosocial factors examined did not explain the basic association, and to the extent that the control variables were an adequately comprehensive set.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1990

Is there divine justice in AIDS? Why now, and not before?

Retroviruses emerged before Homo sapiens in the course of vertebrate evolution. The first human retrovirus was isolated in 1979; the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) assumed epidemic importance in 1981. That such a novel threat to the survival of our species struck only when we had in place, for the first time, the science necessary to fight back seems remarkably coincidental. Cause-and-effect explanations include (1) human activities unique to the late 20th century and (2) a merciful, slow-to-anger God willing to "hold back" until the right time (chairos). By either possibility, AIDS might signify our failure to manage properly the world's ecosystems, the limitations of scientific progress, and/or deficiencies in our collective worldview.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗