Is it ethical to perform a surgery whose purpose is to make a male look like a female or a female to appear male? Is it medically appropriate? Sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) violates basic medical and ethical principles and is therefore not ethically or medically appropriate. (1) SRS mutilates a healthy, non-diseased body. To perform surgery on a healthy body involves unnecessary risks; therefore, SRS violates the principle primum non nocere, “first, do no harm.” (2) Candidates for SRS may believe (...) that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong sex and therefore desire or, more accurately, demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a “category mistake”—it offers a surgical solution for psychological problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one’s masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same-sex peers or a parent, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to masturbation and fantasy, poor body image, excessive anger, and severe psychopathology in a parent. (3) SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person’s sex; therefore, it provides no true benefit. (4) SRS is a “permanent,” effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary (i.e., psychotherapeutically changeable) psychological/psychiatric condition. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.1 (Spring2009): 97–125. (shrink)

DNA gyrase, an enzyme unique to prokaryotes, has been implicated in almost all processes that involve DNA. Although efficient inhibitors of this protein have been known for more than 20 years, none of them have enjoyed prolonged pharmaceutical success. It is only recently that the mechanisms of inhibition for some of these classes of drugs have been established unequivocally by X‐ray crystallography. It is hoped that this detailed structural information will assist the design of novel, effective inhibitors of DNA gyrase.

This study of the interaction of the Aristotelian and Augustinian views of the soul traces the disarray of Latin concepts by 1240, the solutions of Bonaventure ...

The 65th year of a scholar who has devoted 40 years to editing and elucidating Robert Grosseteste provides us with a collection of essays. Not surprisingly, they emanate from colleagues and former students of Richard Dales and reflect his interest, among other concerns, in Grosseteste's aspectus et affectus - range of vision and disposition of mind - those twin peaks with which the 13th century thinker helped to get Christian thought through Aristotle without mutual destruction.

The question of the eternity of the world was much debated in antiquity, for it seemed to be one of the key philosophical differences between the majority of pagan philosophers and the Christians. Indeed, the whole meaning of the Christian drama was grounded in a historical account of the cosmos, which had an absolute beginning at the Creation, a critical turning point at the Incarnation, and a triumphant conclusion at the Resurrection. But the pagan philosophers, with the possible exception of (...) Plato, who was ambiguous on this point, taught by means of highly sophisticated arguments that the world was eternal. This occasioned a head-on clash between the Fathers and the philosophers, and it provoked a good deal of thought on the part of the Christian writers. This thought was crystalized in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy and Augustine's Confessions and City of God. The problem seems to have been largely forgotten during the formative period of Latin Christianity from the seventh to the ninth centuries; the traditional Christian version of the beginning was frequently asserted, but the question was not argued, nor was there any attempt to reconcile Genesis with the teaching of the philosophers. (shrink)

L'A. pubblica una quaestio di Gilberto di Stratton, contenuta nel ms. Assisi, Bibl. Comunale, 158 dal titolo Utrum aliquod eviternum potuit fuisse Deo coeternum che, a suo avviso, rappresenta forse il primo esempio di difesa della posizione assunta da Tommaso all'interno del dibattito de aeterniate mundi, posizione che, come è noto, fu oggetto di condanna nel 1277 . Nella breve introd. che precede il testo, l'A. sottolinea il fatto che Gilberto oltre a riprendere e ad assumere la posizione di Tommaso, (...) ed in particolare quella della non contradditorietà tra l'esse factum e l'esse aeternum, mostra di conoscere le critiche che aveva mosso Bonaventura al Doctor angelicus e gli argomenti ex infinito formulati dal maestro francescano per dimostrare l'inizio temporale del mondo. Di Gilberto esiste un'altra quaestio contenuta nello stesso ms. e che sembra una versione alterata del De aeternitate di Tommaso e che l'A. ha pubblicato con O. Argerami in Leiden 1993. (shrink)

Robert Grosseteste was one of the principal links between the thought of the twelfth century and the period of scholasticism. Born in or slightly before 1168 and educated at the cathedral school at Lincoln, whose bishop he later became, he was undoubtedly educated according to the curriculum which had been established during the earlier part of the twelfth century. His works show an intimate knowledge of the Timaeus and Calcidius's commentary, of Priscian, and of Martianus Capella's De nuptiis, writings which, (...) although they were sometimes cited, declined drastically in popularity in the thirteenth century. He also shows a better knowledge of the classical authors than one usually encounters in a scholastic theologian, and he knows and uses Eriugena's Periphyseon, although he does not cite it by name. (shrink)

Background: There is limited research on brain lesions in children with cerebral visual impairment of heterogeneous etiologies and according to associated subtyping and vision dysfunctions. This study was part of a larger project establishing data-driven subtypes of childhood CVI according to visual dysfunctions. Currently there is no consensus in relation to assessment, diagnosis and classification of CVI and more information about brain lesions may be of potential diagnostic value.Aim: This study aimed to investigate overall patterns of brain lesions and associations (...) with level of visual dysfunction and to compare the patterns between the classification subgroups in children with CVI.Methods: School-aged children with CVI received ophthalmological and neuro-psychological/developmental assessments to establish CVI-related subtyping. Other pediatric information was collected from medical records. MRI scans were coded according to a semi-quantitative template including brain regions and summed for total scores. Non-parametric analyses were conducted.Results: 28 children had clinical brain MRI scans available [44% of total sample, Group A n = 16, Group B n = 12]. Total brain scores ranged between 0 and 18 and were widespread across regions. 71 per cent had post-geniculate visual pathway damage. The median total brain and hemisphere scores of Group B were higher than subgroup A but differences did not reach statistical significance. No statistically significant associations were found between brain scores and vision variables.Conclusion: This study found a spread of lesions across all regions on the brain scans in children with congenital CVI. The majority had damage in the postgeniculate visual pathways and visual cortex region suggesting this is an area of interest and potentially informative for diagnosis. However the subtyping classification did not show differences in number or region of lesions though the trend was higher toward Group B. This study confirms the complex diffuse and variable nature of brain lesions in children with congenital CVI, many of whom have other neurological impairments. (shrink)