This happens to be the 100th post in this blog. I'm not sure if this is an occasion for celebration, but perhaps some reflection on the past is in order. In October 1965, The Lancet published an article titled "Purposes of Medicine" by Sir Theodore Fox. Here are some good excerpts.
"In 1656 William Harvey bade us search and study out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment."
The medical profession and the church "are anomalous in being allowed to put service to mankind before service to the national group from which they spring [...] Even in war, [the doctor] may be permitted to believe in human brotherhood - to treat all men without political or racial or religious distinction."
"Our profession cannot regard anybody's life as expendable, nor anybody's life as forfeit. For no human being can be excommunicated from the human race. [Yet] I dissent utterly from the view that a negative decision not to prolong a life is the same as a positive decision to shorten it."
"Not least do people differ in their attitude to life. Some cling to it as a miser to his money, and to as little purpose. Others wear it lightly - ready to risk it for a cause, a hope, a song, the wind on their face. When so many people think of it as a means, the doctor, surely, would be wrong to insist that it is always the first of ends. Life is not really the most important thing in life."
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In ancient Greece, the asclepion was a healing temple dedicated to Asclepius, the God of Medicine. Asclepius learned the art of surgery from the centaur Chiron and had the ability to raise the dead. The Rod of Asclepius is a roughhewn branch entwined with a single serpent.
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Hi! I am Craig Chen, a third year resident physician in anesthesiology at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics. I went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to medical school, I studied philosophy and biology at Stanford University, along with a minor in creative writing.
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