The idea of reviewing the ethical concerns of ancient medicine with an eye as to how they might instruct us about the extremely lively disputes of our own contemporary medicine is such a natural one that it surprises us to real ize how very slow we have been to pursue it in a sustained way_ Ideologues have often seized on the very name of Hippocrates to close off debate about such matters as abortion and euthanasia - as if by appeal to a well-known and sacred authority that no informed person would care or dare to oppose_ And yet, beneath the polite fakery of such reference, we have deprived our selves of a familiarity with the genuinely 'unsimple' variety of Greek and Roman reflections on the great questions of medical ethics. The fascination of recovering those views surely depends on one stunning truism at least: humans sicken and die; they must be cared for by those who are socially endorsed to specialize in the task; and the changes in the rounds of human life are so much the same from ancient times to our own that the disputes and agreements of the past are remarkably similar to those of our own.

In this book Paul Carrick charts the ancient Greek and Roman foundations of Western medical ethics. Surveying 1500 years of pre-Christian medical moral history, Carrick applies insights from ancient medical ethics to developments in contemporary medicine such as advance directives, gene therapy, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, and surrogate motherhood. He discusses such timeless issues as the social status of the physician; attitudes toward dying and death; and the relationship of medicine to philosophy, religion, and popular morality. Opinions of a wide range of ancient thinkers are consulted, including physicians, poets, philosophers, and patients. He also explores the puzzling question of Hippocrates' identity, analyzing not only the Hippocratic Oath but also the Father of Medicine's lesser-known works. Complete with chapter discussion questions, illustrations, a map, and appendices of ethical codes, Medical Ethics in the Ancient World will be useful in courses on the medical humanities, ancient philosophy, bioethics, comparative cultures, and the history of medicine. Accessible to both professionals and to those with little background in medical philosophy or ancient science, Carrick's book demonstrates that in the ancient world, as in our own postmodern age, physicians, philosophers, and patients embraced a diverse array of perspectives on the most fundamental questions of life and death.

When physicians in training enter their clinical years and first begin to become involved in clinical decision making, they soon find that more than the technical data they had so carefully learned is involved. Prior to that time, of course, they were aware that more than technology was involved in practicing medicine, but here, for the first time, the reality is forcefully brought home. It may be on the medical ward, when a patient or a patient's relatives ask that no further treatment be given and that the patient be allowed to die; it may be in ob/gyn, when a 4- or 5-month pregnant lady with two other children and just deserted by her husband pleads for an abortion; it may be in the outpatient setting, where patients unable to afford enough to eat cannot afford to buy antibiotics for their sick child or provide him or her with the recom mended diet. Whatever the setting, students soon find themselv. es con fronted with problems in which an answer is not given by the technical possibilities alone; indeed, students may have to face situations in which, all things considered, the use of these technical possibilities seems ill-advised. But choices need to be made. Some of us may choose to hide behind a mastery of technology.

1 Historical Introduction INTRODUCTION This chapter is mainly about the history of medicine and its ethics. As usually c- ceived, history is retrograde: It is what happened yesterday, and, much as we may try, it is what happened yesterday seen with a set of today’s eyes. Trying to understand yesterday’s culture may help us put on a pair of corrective glasses, but it fails in - tirely correcting our vision. Contemporary cultural anthropology may likewise help us understand the way today’s events and cultural habits shape what we call history tomorrow. Past events and the kaleidoscopic pattern of today’s cultures may help guide us into a future that in at least some respects is ours to forge. Learning about ethics yesterday and thinking about ethics as it expresses itself in various cultures today can help us shape the ethics of tomorrow: This is true whether we are speaking of that part of social ethics called “medical” or of any other part of social ethics. The social aspects of medical practice—how the institution called medicine fits into and works within the greater society called culture—shape the way its ethics ultimately must play itself out.

The first edition of Ancient Medicine was the most complete examination of the medicine of the ancient world for a hundred years. The new edition includes the key discoveries made since the first edition, especially from important texts discovered in recent finds of papyri and manuscripts, making it the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey available. Vivian Nutton pays particular attention to the life and work of doctors in communities, links between medicine and magic, and examines the different approaches to medicine across the ancient world. The new edition includes more on Rufus and Galen as well as augmented information on Babylonia, Hellenistic medicine and Late Antiquity. With recently discovered texts made accessible for the first time, and providing new evidence, this broad exploration challenges currently held perspectives, and proves an invaluable resource for students of both classics and the history of medicine.

For the first time, a book considers the doctor/patient relationship in the long period and from a broad geographical perspective. Historians, anthropologists and doctors reflect on the factors that, from the Classical age until the present, have altered the care relationship and the power relations embedded within it. The book also highlights that communication and narration, understood as constitutive aspects of care, are the elements which link the past to the present. From the encounter between religion and medicine to the centuries-long struggle between doctors and patients in defence of their respective positions, from medical dramas to efforts to humanize medicine, the book describes the doctor/patient relationship in all its cultural, transnational and transtemporal dimensions.

The first book to be published in this region, it describes the scientific basis of the procedures, as also their indications, scope and limitations. Alternative approaches available for various disease entities are included.

Drawing on a wide range of primary historical and sociological sources and employing sharp philosophical analysis, this book investigates medical ethics from a Chinese-Western comparative perspective. In doing so, it offers a fascinating exploration of both cultural differences and commonalities exhibited by China and the West in medicine and medical ethics. The book carefully examines a number of key bioethical issues in the Chinese socio-cultural context including: attitudes toward foetuses; disclosure of information by medical professionals; informed consent; professional medical ethics; health promotion; feminist bioethics; and human rights. It not only provides insights into Chinese perspectives, but also sheds light on the appropriate methods for comparative cultural and ethical studies. Through his pioneering study, Jing-Bao Nie has put forward a theory of "trans-cultural bioethics," an ethical paradigm which upholds the primacy of morality whilst resisting cultural stereotypes, and appreciating the internal plurality, richness, dynamism and openness of medical ethics in any culture. Medical Ethics in China will be of particular interest to students and academics in the fields of Medical Law, Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Cross-Cultural Ethics as well as Chinese/Asian Studies and Comparative Cross-Cultural Studies.

Medical ethics draws upon methods from a wide array of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, epidemiology, health services research, history, law, medicine, nursing, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology. In this influential book, outstanding scholars in medical ethics bring these many methods together in one place to be systematically described, critiqued, and challenged. Newly revised and updated chapters in this second edition include philosophy, religion and theology, virtue and professionalism, casuistry and clinical ethics, law, history, qualitative research, ethnography, quantitative surveys, experimental methods, and economics and decision science. This second edition also includes new chapters on literature and sociology, as well as a second chapter on philosophy which expands the range of philosophical methods discussed to include gender ethics, communitarianism, and discourse ethics. In each of these chapters, contributors provide descriptions of the methods, critiques, and notes on resources and training. Methods in Medical Ethics is a valuable resource for scholars, teachers, editors, and students in any of the disciplines that have contributed to the field. As a textbook and reference for graduate students and scholars in medical ethics, it offers a rich understanding of the complexities involved in the rigorous investigation of moral questions in medical practice and research.

From the author of How We Die, the extraordinary story of the development of modern medicine, told through the lives of the physician-scientists who paved the way. How does medical science advance? Popular historians would have us believe that a few heroic individuals, possessing superhuman talents, lead an unselfish quest to better the human condition. But as renowned Yale surgeon and medical historian Sherwin B. Nuland shows in this brilliant collection of linked life portraits, the theory bears little resemblance to the truth. Through the centuries, the men and women who have shaped the world of medicine have been not only very human, but also very much the products of their own times and places. Presenting compelling studies of great medical innovators and pioneers, Doctors gives us a fascinating history of modern medicine. Ranging from the legendary Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, to Andreas Vesalius, whose Renaissance masterwork on anatomy offered invaluable new insight into the human body, to Helen Taussig, founder of pediatric cardiology and co-inventor of the original "blue baby" operation, here is a volume filled with the spirit of ideas and the thrill of discovery.