Abstract
Looking at the History of Medicine we realize how many different and ambiguous influences have shaped its face. We might conceive medicine as a system of knowledge or as a science, as a tradition of care of suffering and needy, medicine as a social institution and as a profession.
Because of its immediate relationship with life and death, suffering and illness, medicine also provides unique insight in the cultural history of European thought. The ever-changing image of man is clearly reflected in medicine: the interconnectedness of life and death, the awareness of own fragility and intuition of something that transcends the finitude of human existence as well as various attempts to reach the source of life and safely repose in its waters is something ever present in all of its intricate traditions.
The aim of this book is to portray the multiplicity of these pursuits. Contributions of scholars in medicine, history, philosophy, ethics, theology, biology, anthropology, sociology and psychology.