Medicína v kontextu západního myšlení – Fialová Lydie, Špaček Martin, Kouba Petr (2011)

From a cursory glance at the history of medicine, it is clear that it is a very diverse and ambiguous tradition. One can speak of medicine in terms of knowledge or science, in terms of care for the suffering and the sick, of medicine as an institution, and of medicine as a profession. However, medicine, with its immediate relationship to life and death, health, illness, and suffering, also represents a unique insight into the cultural history of European thought. The changing image of man, as viewed in different periods, is clearly reflected in medicine: the interconnectedness of life and death, the awareness of one's own vulnerability and finitude, and the intuition of something that transcends this finitude accompany the medical tradition in all its forms. The task of this book is to capture and express precisely that diversity and ambiguity. The very separation of illness from suffering, which has been increasingly solidified with the advent of effective technical procedures, supports the conception of man as an object of medical interest at the expense of perceiving man as a suffering neighbor, and it encounters its limits especially in the case of chronic and psychiatric illnesses, which, due to epidemiological developments in our environment, are relatively on the rise. It is precisely the reminder of some forgotten ideas and concepts...