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PubMed1992

Care of the dying: an ethical and historical perspective.

OBJECTIVE: To provide a historical perspective, from ancient Greece to the middle of the 20th century, on ethical issues and principles commonly associated with medical care for the dying in Western civilization. SOURCES: Writings of noted philosophers, historians, ethicists, and physicians, as well as published legal and ethical guidelines. INFORMATION EXTRACTION: The sources used highlight the origins of various ethical principles associated with care of the dying. They also identify the opinions of prominent individuals throughout the history of medical ethics. SUMMARY: Devotion to medical beneficence, concern for the quality of life, and respect for the sanctity of life are all expressed in the earliest medical and philosophical writings of ancient Greece. With regard to care of the dying, these considerations led to a wide acceptance of avoiding or terminating treatment in hopeless cases. They also led to active debate regarding medicine's role in hastening the dying process. The rise of Christianity during the Middle Ages markedly suppressed such debate by strongly reinforcing the principle of sanctity of life. Later, the optimism of the enlightenment added the hope of prolonging life. Finally, modern advances in medical science have made that hope a reality of complex ethical dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: Ethical debates regarding appropriate care for the dying are as old as medicine itself. Although beneficent concerns have characterized the medical community in almost every period of history, tensions have repeatedly arisen as diverse religious and philosophical ideologies have produced varying standards to define such beneficence. In the Christian world, the sanctity of life was often extolled as the paramount standard. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, and again in many post-Renaissance philosophies, quality of life considerations assumed equal or greater importance. Modern life-prolonging technologies heighten the debate by allowing these two standards to dramatically conflict, particularly in the critical care setting.

Beneficence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reclaiming our moral tradition. Catholic teaching calls us to accept the limits of medical technology.

The success of science and medical technology has led to medical brinkmanship, pushing aggressive treatment as far as it can go. But medicine lacks the precision necessary for such brinkmanship to succeed, and the resulting cycle of expectation and disappointment in technology has, in part, led to an increasing acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide, linked closely with advocacy for patient autonomy. At the opposite extreme lies medical vitalism, which refers to attempts to preserve the patient's life in and of itself without any significant hope for recovery. The Catholic moral tradition offers a middle ground, well expressed in the 1994 Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The tradition does not deny the good of technology or state that some lives are not worth living. Rather, it calls us to accept the fact that medical technology has limits. In reclaiming this tradition, we reclaim the naturalness of death. Reclaiming the tradition has practical consequences for the use of life-prolonging technology at the end of life and for end-of-life decision making. These can be placed in three broad categories: the Christian understanding of care, the ambiguity inherent in end-of-life decision making, and the task of Christian formation.

Catholicism↗
PubMed2005

1/f(alpha) spectra in elementary cellular automata and fractal signals.

We systematically compute the power spectra of the one-dimensional elementary cellular automata introduced by Wolfram. On the one hand our analysis reveals that one automaton displays 1/f spectra though considered as trivial, and on the other hand that various automata classified as chaotic or complex display no 1/f spectra. We model the results generalizing the recently investigated Sierpinski signal to a class of fractal signals that are tailored to produce 1/f(alpha) spectra. From the widespread occurrence of (elementary) cellular automata patterns in chemistry, physics, and computer sciences, there are various candidates to show spectra similar to our results.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2001

[Scientific ethics and frozen embryos].

BACKGROUND: Scientific Ethics is the theory and praxis of decisions. Philosophical Ethics is presented as the theory and praxis of the good. As the good differs among cultures, Philosophical Ethics is dependent on the endo-cultural good conception. The decision (included that one of adhesion or not to a world vision) depends on neuro-psychic specific factors: i) cognitive factors that include mostly the knowledge of the alternatives and their consequences and the ideological or religious conception of good in relation to the alternatives; ii) affective factors that make alternatives pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, attractive, repulsive or neutral; iii) emotional factors that associate to alternatives anger, peace or neutrality, sadness, happiness or neutrality; iv) value factors that assign importance, triviality or neutrality to alternatives, or assign them significance, irrelevancy or neutrality. There are unspecific factors such as the psychic energy, desire or others. Mixed factors such as attitude, motivation, intention and others. Scientific Ethics deals with the mind as a materio-energetic process which is different from the soul, eggs and embryos of any species are full individuals of that species, because, they have initiated a copy of their genome that specify, give autonomy and define them as individuals. For Scientific Ethics to leave frozen embryos like that for ever, to defrost and get rid of them or to use their cells for science are synonymous of killing them. To defrost them to use their cells as stem cells for somatic cell therapy or to implant them into uteri to continue their development is to maintain alive their cells, but only the implantation allows their maintenance as individuals, thus, being the only compatible with the Christian ethics. The compatibility of these alternatives with other ethics is discussed.

Cryopreservation↗
PubMed1997

A critique of the concept of quality of life.

Taking a philosophical approach, ancient Greek philosophers and Christians began to investigate the concept of quality of life. Later, such philisophical pursuit was replaced by the school of positivism, which indicated that science was and still is the only valid form of enquiry. Through such positivistic science, the metaphysical nature of the concept of quality of life is thought to be uncovered. However, the later Wittgensteinian philosophical thoughts demonstrated that there is no metaphysical understanding of any concepts but there is only knowledge of playing language games. In the light of this philosophy, prior to any scientific investigations, researchers have already understood and agreed on the concept of quality of life by playing language games. From the above philosophical analyses, outlines some implications for health care research.

Health Services Research↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Is the biosphere a luxury?

Wherever did we get the idea that we are no kin to the earth's other inhabitants, and that we can therefore deal with them as we please? Several strains of thought converged to produce this way of thinking, which must now be unlearned.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1976

[Elements of Spanish psychiatry].

The development of a psychiatric science in Spain took place on various levels. To this end an examination was made as to the cultural-historical side with the Christian and stoical tradition as well as to the ethnologic-psychological side, especially with the aspect of inferiority and pride taking into consideration the reflection of these problems in the so-called "generation of 1898". Furthermore, linguistic aspects were taken into consideration as the example of the Spanish term ""gana" and the expressions of the Valencian dialect in the Middle Ages show. The "forerunner"-psychiatry as well as the significance of the first European Christian mental hospital in 1409 were described. The examination comes to the conclusion that whilst the Spanish psychiatry, after comparatively late maturity, followed the German phenomenological school, it still succeeded in enriching this school with conceptions of its own, such as the vital fear (López Ibor) and physiodynamic factors.

Culture↗
PubMed1995

[Introduction to bioethics in contemporary medicine].

The author makes a historical revision of his 50 years experience in medical ethics as a student and physician. In 1944, medical ethics was traditional and resolved simple problems based on Hippocrates postulates and christian humanism. The present scientific and cultural revolution has impelled the rise of bioethics defined as "the systematic study of human behavior in life sciences, based on moral principles". The bioethical methods attempt to facilitate the application of universal ethical principles to the solution of complex cases, generated by the new medical technology. These ethical problems were posed in Chile in 1962 by the french professor Jean Cheymol, who reported the serious human rights abused derives from new scientific experiments. Later in 1973, Dr. Motulsky predicted the advent of "a brave new world" and the need to create a new biological ethic. These challenges were faced by the professors of the faculty of Medicine, who created ethics commissions in 1975 and edited medical ethics code texts. There are three players in the bioethic context. Physicians apply beneficence; patients defend their autonomy: the State and the society defends justice. A conflict of values lies in the bottom of bioethics. The author vindicates the coherence of traditional medical ethics. Philosophers, theologians and lawyers can only help physicians, but are not responsible. Bioethics must allow a frank dialogue between these professionals, respecting their roles and responsibilities.

Bioethics↗
PubMed2001

Did God create our universe? Theological reflections on the Big Bang, inflation, and quantum cosmologies.

The sciences and the humanities, including theology, form an epistemic hierarchy that ensures both constraint and irreducibility. At the same time, theological methodology is analogous to scientific methodology, though with several important differences. This model of interaction between science and theology can be seen illustrated in a consideration of the relation between contemporary cosmology (Big Bang cosmology, cosmic inflation, and quantum cosmology) and Christian systematic and natural theology. In light of developments in cosmology, the question of origins has become theologically less interesting than that of the cosmic evolution of a contingent universe.

Extraterrestrial Environment↗
PubMed1995

[Carl Christian Wilhelm Juch (1772-1821). His biography and his scientific work].

This article introduces Carl Christian Wilhelm Juch, Pharmacist, Doctor and Chemist, who, now almost forgotten, was well known in his time for his numerous works and essays on Natural Science. Some new biographic findings are disclosed. Juch's work covers a series of writings on Natural Science, in which he put great emphasis on economic and technological themes. His translation of and commentary on the Pharmacopoea Borussica 1805 provided an important contribution to pharmacy. In 1801 Juch was appointed Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at the University of Altdorf. In his position as University Professor he went 1805 to the Munic Lyceum and in 1808 to the Augsburg Realinstitut in order to teach Chemistry, Natural History and Dietetics. In 1816/17 he retired due to poor health. Juch died in Augsburg in 1821 at the age of forty-eight.

Chemistry↗
PubMed2006

Macromolecular-scale resolution in biological fluorescence microscopy.

We demonstrate far-field fluorescence microscopy with a focal-plane resolution of 15-20 nm in biological samples. The 10- to 12-fold multilateral increase in resolution below the diffraction barrier has been enabled by the elimination of molecular triplet state excitation as a major source of photobleaching of a number of dyes in stimulated emission depletion microscopy. Allowing for relaxation of the triplet state between subsequent excitation-depletion cycles yields an up to 30-fold increase in total fluorescence signal as compared with reported stimulated emission depletion illumination schemes. Moreover, it enables the reduction of the effective focal spot area by up to approximately 140-fold below that given by diffraction. Triplet-state relaxation can be realized either by reducing the repetition rate of pulsed lasers or by increasing the scanning speed such that the build-up of the triplet state is effectively prevented. This resolution in immunofluorescence imaging is evidenced by revealing nanoscale protein patterns on endosomes, the punctuated structures of intermediate filaments in neurons, and nuclear protein speckles in mammalian cells with conventional optics. The reported performance of diffraction-unlimited fluorescence microscopy opens up a pathway for addressing fundamental problems in the life sciences.

Actin Cytoskeleton↗
PubMed1999

Is analytical psychology a religion? Rationalist and romantic approaches to religion and modernity.

The relationship between analytical psychology and religion is part of the larger issue of the relationship between modernity and religion. There are three main views on the issue. The fundamentalist position sets religion against modernity and opts for religion over modernity. What I call the 'rationalist' position likewise sets religion against modernity but opts for modernity over religion. By contrast to both views, what I call the 'romantic' position reconciles religion with modernity. Rationalists maintain that religion can exist only in so far as it serves as an explanation of the physical world, which the rise of science now precludes. Romantics maintain that religion, while serving as an explanation of the physical world till dislodge by science, is at heart anything but an explanation. The toppling of the religions explanation by the scientific one, far from dooming religion, prods religion into making explicit what it has in fact been all along. By this categorization, Jung is overwhelmingly a romantic. For him, the function of religion has always been more psychological than explanatory, and the rise of science does not preclude the continuing existence of religious myths as a psychological rather than an explanatory phenomenon. For those for whom science does spell the demise of religion, secular myths can replace religious ones, and those secular myths are more secular versions of religions myths than secular alternatives to religions myths. Yet even if for Jung religion can still exist today because religion is in fact psychology, it does not follow that psychology is therefore a religion.

Christianity↗
PubMedDate not supplied

William Penn and the peace of Europe.

The Quaker William Penn proposed a European Union to ensure peace in the continent in 1693. Penn was unusual among Quakers in being of the landed upper classes. When converted, he became a leader of the Quakers and other Dissenters. He had the two related ideals of peace and religious toleration, and dreamed of realizing both ideals in the New World. A practical idealist, he took advantage of four factors: friends at Court made through his social position; King Charles II's gratitude for services rendered by his father, Admiral Sir William Penn; the King's desire to conciliate the City merchants, who were ready to invest in Penn's scheme; and above all the King's concern to get North America settled by British colonists. Penn received a charter to found Pennsylvania in 1681. In England he worked hard, especially in collaboration with James II, for toleration for the cruelly persecuted Quakers and other Dissenters. In Pennsylvania he was able to establish complete toleration and his fair and friendly treatment gave the colony 70 years of peaceful co-existence with the Indians. In his essay on the peace of Europe, he virtually invented collective security and with amazing foresight planned in detail something very like the present European Union.

Christianity↗