HISTORY OF MEDICINE ON THE BORDER BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

• Main Authors: Mirela Radu, Reka Incze (Kutasi)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amaltea Medical Publishing House 2018-12-01
• Series: Romanian Medical Journal
• Subjects: hilosophy; science; history of medicine; alchemy; folklore
• Online Access: https://revistemedicale.amaltea.ro/Romanian_MEDICAL_Journal/Revista_MEDICALA_ROMANA-2018-Nr.4/RMJ_2018_4_Art-11.pdf

Physicians have represented along time the main transmitters of knowledge as they were real scholars. If Renaissance promoted the study of the human body anatomy and physiology, the next step made by practitioners of medicine was to spread the enlightenment. That meant the shift of the very purpose of their profession: from passive opposition to ailments towards an active involvement into the lives of the impoverished. In order to change the odds in the battle against diseases, physicians had the great burden to enlarge the cultural horizons of those whose health was in their hands. Therefore, one way of imparting knowledge was by publishing and spreading their attainments to the general public in a comprehensible way. Once people gained awareness of the dangers entailed by bad hygiene, the physicians’ role in society switched towards more cultural realms. At the beginning of the 20th century health care professionals achieved the next step in the becoming of medicine: setting up a new science to link humanities with pure science. In Romania, the main promoters of