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Article: Knowing when to stop: the limits of medicine. (Baconian science as the basis of modern medical science, encourages medically futile treatment, while the older Hippocratic tradition of medicine urges moderation in medical intervention)
- Article from:
- The Hastings Center Report
- Article date:
- May 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Hastings Center. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Enshrined in modern medicine is a distinct set of values. When medicine assumes these values uncritically, a host of ethical problems results. A glimpse at the ancient roots of modern medicine reveals that an older scientific tradition entertained a very different set of values--values that provide wise counsel and shed light on the specificf ethical concern of providing medically futile care to patients.
Hippocratic Medicine
Hippocratic physicians in the fifth through third centuries B.C. were among the first to question the ethical limits of medicine. Historians regard one of their achievements to be an understanding of when and when not to ...