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