Despite its triumphs, medical science today faces a new and costly crop of ill-health. Mental illness, stress diseases, and the medical consequences of self-indulgence, such as drug addiction, V.D. and lung cancer, are all on the increase.
Much of this is preventable, but it calls for a change of emphasis in our approach to the health, both of individuals and of society. Live moral issues are also involved in organ transplants, human experimentation and euthanasia.
With these considerations in mind, Dr. Claxton, formerly Assistant Secretary of the British Medical Association, and his brother, Dr. Charles Claxton, the Bishop of Blackburn, together arranged a Consultation at St. George’s House, Windsor Castle, in March 1968 on the theme "Medicine, Science, Religion and the Health of Society". This was attended by bishops, professors, medical consultants and others.
The Consultation gave rise to the publication of this book, which is in three main parts, The Present Context, The Promotion of Health, and The Nature of Man. Outstanding authorities in their fields have joined those contributors who delivered papers at Windsor in making up the fifteen chapters of this book. They include Professor Camps, the Home Office Pathologist, on Some Ethical Problems facing Medicine; Dr. Ramsey, the Bishop of Durham, on The Theology of Salvation; Professor Jeeves, Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews, on Brain and Personality; and there is a concluding article by Garth Lean on Curing a Sick Society.
This book is intended for lay as well as professional readers, and many will draw new thinking and insight from its pages.
English