Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- 3 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Hindu India
- 4 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Buddhist India
- 5 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in China
- 6 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Japan
- 7 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Europe and the Americas
- 8 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in the Islamic Middle east
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Europe and the Americas
from PART III - DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- 3 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Hindu India
- 4 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Buddhist India
- 5 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in China
- 6 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Japan
- 7 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in Europe and the Americas
- 8 Medical Ethics through the Life Cycle in the Islamic Middle east
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Life cycles are constructed when the seemingly natural, foreordained, biological, or social changes of an organism's life are segmented into a series of linked sequential stages, for example: conception, birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, dying and death; or, toddler, preschooler, grade schooler, high-schooler, college student, graduate, employee, and retiree. These stages are typically infused with social meanings that, in turn, become the lenses through which biological and social changes are interpreted. Societies construct life cycles differently: some recognize adolescence/teen age as intervening between childhood and adulthood; others do not recognize any interim stage. In any society, alternative conceptions of the life cycle and its meanings are articulated in discourses that may be congruent, overlapping, competing, or conflicting.
This chapter focuses on biomedical conceptions of the life cycle in European culture and its (post–fifteenth-century) extension in the Americas, examining their complex interactions and conflicts with other conceptions of the life cycle, in particular with those informed by Judeo-Christian religious traditions (a subject dealt with in Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 17). In treating the richly diverse cultures of three continents as if they were one culture that embraced a single conception of the life cycle, and in focusing on what came to be called “allopathic medicine,” we of necessity oversimplify much and ignore more.
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- Chapter
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- The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics , pp. 137 - 162Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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