General reviews
THE BIBLICAL UNDERSTANDING OF SKING DISEASES, REPULSIVE RARE PATHOLOGIES AND SLATTERN DISEASES. ROMANIAN MEDICAL, EPIDEMIOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ASPECTS
On 12 November 2016, the Holy Father Pope Francis
sent his cordial greetings to the participants at the XXXI
International Conference organized by the Pontifical
Council for healthcare providers (for the Pastoral Health
Care) about rare pathologies. The conference topic: “For a
joint welcoming culture of health, in the service of people
affected by rare and slattern diseases»1. The conference
aimed to recognize the current bioethical and medical
conditions as well as to find and re-launch practical
interventions in healthcare, whose values are based on the
respect for life, dignity and patients’ rights together with
the joint welcoming commitment and the achievement of
curative strategies determined by sincere love towards the
suffering person. Medicine was regarded as the priests’
preserve and remained, in part, similar to magic. The start
occurred with the Greeks’ spirit of observation and medicine
autonomously developed as a positive science. All the
participants were recollecting the act made by the current
Pope Francis, on 6 November 2013, when he
wholeheartedly embraced the 53-year-old Vincio Riva
suffering from genetic neurofibromatosis in St. Peter’s
Square in Rome. In this paper we will approach the
following aspects: the biblical understanding of repulsive
skin diseases, generically called leprosy, and we will deepen
the concept of purity (pure-impure) as necessary provision
in healthcare and finally, we will present the Romanian
current medical casuistry, medical, epidemiological and
sociopolitical issues regarding the treatment and social
integration of such patients affected by rare and slattern
diseases