The word hygiene comes from Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health (photo, below), who was the daughter of Aesculapius, the god of medicine. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution (c.1750-1850) and the discovery of the germ theory of disease in the second half of the nineteenth century, hygiene and sanitation have been at the […]
Medical History — Hygiene and Sanitation Read More »
I was recently asked to review The Nazi War on Cancer by Robert N. Proctor for Ideas on Liberty. What follows here is a more extended critique of this scholarly but deeply disturbing book. Proctor, a professor of history of science at Penn State, thoroughly documents and describes in a good light what he calls
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The Nazi War on Cancer by Robert N. Proctor is a deeply disturbing book for it describes in a good light what the author calls “the lesser-known ‘flipside’ of fascism-the side that gave us struggles against smoking, campaigns for cleaner food and water, for exercise and preventive medicine.” The Nazi “accomplishments” include the establishment of
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In their guidelines for resolving conflict in cases of non-beneficial or futile medical treatment, the San Francisco Bay Area Network of Ethics Committee continues the disturbing trend of medicine moving toward collectivism and the ethics of distributive justice.(1,2) According to the tradition and ethics of Hippocrates that have served the profession well for 2500 years,
Utilitarianism and the perversion of the ethics of Hippocrates Read More »
An article in the New Oxford Review illustrates how ” ‘a right to die’ easily becomes ‘a duty to die’ once society labels some lives as not worth living.” Two case histories were briefly outlined. In one instance, Harold Cybulski, visited by his family while in his hospital bed in Ontario, Canada, wakes up from
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The physician should be contemptuous of money, interested in his work,self-controlled, and just. Once he is possessed of these basic virtues,he will have all others at his command as well.Galen Can the Medical Profession Survive Flexible Ethics?* The medical writers of antiquity wrote and discussed ethics merely as individuals trying to find out the best
