The history of medicine in the system of modern humanities

Abstract

The achievements of modern theoretical and practical biomedicine and their introduction into clinical practice are creating a fundamentally new anthropological situation on a cross-cultural scale. The ability to not only change but also qualitatively transform the natural morphological, structural and functional components of the human body provides the basis for optimization of its biological status and more effective treatment practices but gives rise to threats and risks of destructive influences. This entails the risk of an uncontrolled transformation of human nature and opens the way for its further development in a different dimension, which is most evident in the ideas and practices of transhumanism. In these circumstances, it is necessary to comprehend the developing situation, to develop approaches and standards that can provide a conscious, controlled character to a whole range of biotechnological influences that are aimed at human beings. Humanitarian knowledge in its present state, as well as perceptions of humanity established in previous periods mainly under the influence of natural sciences, no longer meet modern needs. There is a need for a new type of humanities, which would have a typological, systematizing and regulatory nature. The main foundations for its formation are philosophy, the history of medicine and the arts. The history of medicine acquires special significance in this case because as a scientific discipline it is based on a clear historical and genetic methodology that is inherent to it. It contains the most complete body of knowledge about how to save the valuable status of the person at all stages of general historical development and has significant theoretical and anthropological potential.