The eco-ethical contribution of Menico Torchio - a forgotten pioneer of European Bioethics.

BACKGROUND: In 1926, Fritz Jahr described bio-ethics (German: bio-ethik) as "the assumption of moral obligations not only towards humans, but towards all forms of life." Jahr summarized his philosophy by declaring, "Respect every living being on principle as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!." Bioethics was thus originally an ethical system concerned with the "problems of interference with other living beings… and generally everything related to the balance of the ecosystem" according to the 1978 Encyclopedia of Bioethics. This definition was predicated on the work of Fritz Jahr, Menico Torchio, and Van Rensselaer Potter. METHODS: In order to proceed with depthful analysis of the origin and major bioethical flare up, we will use critical analysis of existing literature, followed by a study trip to relevant bioethical localities (collecting photo and other documentations regarding Menico Torchio). RESULTS: While Jahr and Potter are typically given intellectual credit for developing the field of bioethics, the eco-ethical contributions of Menico Torchio have been forgotten.This article will first trace the origins of "bioethics" - now commonly bifurcated into "biomedical ethics" and "environmental bioethics." The former was developed by Tom Beauchamp from the Philosophy Department and James Childress of the Religious Studies department at Georgetown University and is based on principlism, with a narrow focus on medical settings. The latter addresses the environmental impact of the medical industry and climate change health hazards. Second, we will present a panorama of Torchio's significant intellectual contribution to bioethics. Menico Torchio's concept of bioethics synthesized work of both Jahr and Potter, advocating "the need to expand our ethical obligations and embrace the most developed groups of animals, not only physically but also psychologically." Third, we will reflect on the lasting legacy of "bioethics" on biomedical and environmental bioethics today. Thematic elements such as interconnectedness of planetary health and human health, dedication to living in harmony with nature, and emphasis on systems and symbiosis remain unchanged from the legacy of Tochio onward. CONCLUSION: Our conclusion will underscore the necessity of understanding the connections between planetary, environmental, and human health.

Chapitre 4. Is it time for a plant bioethics?

As early as 1926, Fritz Jahr suggested the broadening of Kant’s Categorical Imperative onto all living beings. And while, at that time, Jahr’s animal ethics could have been built upon Ignaz Bregenzer and other scientifically accepted sources, Jahr’s ideas on plant ethics must have relied only on more poetical and philosophical conjectures, like the ones by Richard Wagner, Hans Christian Andersen, or Eduard von Hartmann. Today, we have accummulated certain knowledge about plant physiology, proving the complexity of plant cognition and feeling. Ten years ago, the “Rheinauer Theses on the Rights of Plants” once again provoked discussion, eventually supported by Monica Gagliano, Stefano Mancuso, and other biologists advocating the redefinition of human relation toward plants. In the present paper, we intend to review those arguments, but also to examine whether our ethics should be based upon our knowledge only.

Chapter 6. Informed consent in Croatia today: bioethical and legal aspects.

After obtaining political independence in the early 1990s, Croatia started to regulate numerous social sectors and issues, including health care. More intensive European integration efforts in the late 1990s, provided a new moment for the 1997 Europen Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, followed in 2004 by the first national Act on the Protection of Patients' Rights. Today, the introduction of the right to co-decison making can be seen as a step forward and a milestone in patients' rights regulation in Croatia.However, such a claim has to face some reconsiderations, mainly due to formal (mis)understanding of the 2004 Act and the lack of its understanding by its users, both patients and physicians. If at some time the co-decision right did serve as an impetus to bioethics in Croatia, more than 10 years later, it faces deficiences due to a lack of the legal support.In this article, we follow the period after the passing of the first Act on the Protection of Patients' Rights in 2004, trying to elucidate pros and cons of the Act, including its contribution to the development of bioethics in Croatia, but also legal omissions of its implementation.

Chapter 5. Specific role of lawyers and the legal perspective in the development of Integrative Bioethics in Croatia.

Athough, first forms of legal provisions concerning medical research in Croatia (ex Yugoslavia) came into force during 1970s (regulating work of "commissions for drugs"), more vivid presence and impact of law within bioethics can be traced in the 1990s. Beside the new Law on Health Protection (1997) - articles 51 and 52 requiring the establishment of ethics committees and regulating the framework of their duties, the introduction and the success of the law occured as a consequence of political changes and international opening, influencing education, research, health and social policies. Later progression of the legal discipline within bioethics can be noticed not only with respect to the work of prominent legal experts, but also the main tide of Croatian bioethics, particularly the Integrative Bioethics of Ante Covic.The aim of this paper is to detect the main representatives of legal perspective and discipline within modern bioethical trends in Croatia, as well as to clarify some of the many intriguing mutal influences.

Science as religion: when science becomes (too) irrational.

Science is expected to be objective: however, since practiced and produced by humans, it has to reflect human flows - prejudices, stubbornness, malice, and the tendency to be misused. No wonder an excellent scientist like John Eccles proclaimed science to be among the most personal activities he had known. By analysing a few examples from the history of science (in particular the intellectual development of Van Rensselaer Potter, the American onco-biochemist and bioethics pioneer), as well as the current trend of the evidence-based approach, the present paper will try to demonstrate that denying, distrusting, and opposing science for the sake of religion, as seen so many times in human history, has significant similarities to the overestimation of science we more often encounter in our times.

[Finderle, Svalba, Blecic, Bakasun: the Rijeka cascade of the Stamparian waterfall]. / Finderle, Svalba, Blecic, Bakasun: rijecka kaskada Stamparova slapa.

The "infectious" ardour of Andrija Stampar's doctrine is well known, not only through the accounts of his contemporaries but also from domestic and foreign literature. After all, this ardour has become ingrained in people and institutions, who have carried it on for decades. This article follows the life of prominent bearers of Stampar's ardour in Rijeka's history of medicine - the obstetrician and inventor Viktor Finderle (1902-1964), the epidemiologist Ante Svalba (1903-1989), the long-time director of the People's Health Centre Kajetan Blecic (1917-2005), and the former director of the Public Health Institute Vjekoslav Bakasun (b. 1929).

Miraculous healings of paralysis: a preliminary study on sources.

The aim of the present paper has been to explore the medieval evidence on miraculous healings of paralysis and to confront it with modern medical knowledge. Paralysis has been selected as a model for such a study and St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) as a model of a saintly healer. Analyzed were the primary sources and modern literature. Paralysis was found to be among the most frequent diseases in medieval miracle reports, including the healings by St. Bernardino. According to the hypothesis offered in the paper, the majority of medieval cases of "miraculously healed paralysis" was of conversive origin.

Fritz Jahr: the invention of bioethics and beyond.

Since the discovery of his work in 1997, Fritz Jahr (1895-1953) has slowly become recognized as the author of the term and concept of bioethics. Jahr's ideas on bioethics were partly different from those shaped by Van Rensselaer Potter in the 1970s and, therefore, might be helpful for the further reform and broadening of modern bioethics. In this article, the authors elucidate ideas from lesser-known works by Jahr, especially those considering animal protection and teaching.

Bioethics of handedness: from evolution to resolution?

Departing from historical facts and speculations on the evolution of human right-hand dominance (including theories on the development of right-handedness and cultural and linguistic sequellae of such a phenomenon), the present work stresses the delicate problem of the traditional favouring of one particular subpopulation, escalating into a real eugenic practice present sporadically even in modern times. The major hypothesis of the paper would be that the problem of forced handedness had been neglected by (bio)ethical theory, practice, and literature, and that it was absolved only recently by the results of modern neuroscientific research on handedness. According to that hypothesis, ending the discrimination took too much time precisely because the initial lack of the problem insight, which certainly should invoke cautiousness for any potentially similar phenomena in the future.