Everyone has tried to tame me, tranquilize me, keep me from suffering, and make everything more bearable, to sedate a restless heart that however had no intention to stop desiring and asking for more. Then you arrived … The encounter with you created in me a demand for my whole life, every second,and I don’t want […]
to sedate a restless heart … Read More »
In the Middle Ages, the figure of the sick man identifies the poor, the outcast and the man in need. Disease is the feature of a particular social class and therapy coincides with assistance to the poor, and with the charitable care of poverty. Poverty itself is defined “morborum genitrix (the mother of diseases)” and the sick man is
One who truly discovers and lives the experience of powerlessness and solitude does not remain alone. Only one who has experienced powerlessness to its depths,and hence personal solitude, feels close to others and is easily drawn to them. Like someone lost, without shelter in a storm, he or she feels his or her cry at
only one who discovers & lives their need … Read More »
Jesus’ Resurrection points beyond history but has left a footprint within history. Benedict XVI – Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week p. 274
a footprint within history … Read More »
Theodore Géricault portrayed a series of psychiatric patients, performing introspective studies with almost scientific features, as required by the customer, who intended to use these paintings for educational purposes. Gericault painted real portraits, characterized by a deep analysis of man’s psychology, even though in the 19th century portraits were destinated only to important clients. This
to search for humanity … Read More »
… “Maybe those two years when I was sick make a difference … I was grateful to God for all the good things He’d given me – my family, growing up in this country with so much opportunity, my good health, my education, my faith – and I was determined to be worthy of them,
… Giorgio Israel in “Medicine Between Humanism and Mechanism” in Journal of Medicine and the Person discusses important foundational issues pertinent to the daily practice of medicine. “Radically objectivistic medicine replaces the idea of “cure/treatment” with the idea of “repair”. It stops listening to the patient and renders the role of clinical practice drastically marginal
medicine … between art & science … Read More »
Manuel Jimenez Prieto (Aranda) (1848-1904) – Visit at the hospital. Jean Martin Charcot (probably) auscultates a patient. Oil on canvas, 1897 “Medicine was born as an Art; it has been defined by scientific features only after Hippocrates. Science itself, anyway, is bounded to art. They share the same claim: to know the essence of reality
curiosity and desire … Read More »
… Lorenzo Albacete on the ‘young old‘ … ” …we are facing the emergence of a new cultural world: that of the “young old, “separate from that of the “old old.” However, this new cultural category is based on a lie, as Jacoby remarks: “At 85 or 90, whatever satisfaction may still lie ahead, only
the illusion of the ‘young old’ … Read More »
