Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA JPRS translation, dated 1 January 1991, of an editorial roundtable written up by V.I. Shamshurin for the Moscow journal Sotsiologicheskiye Issledovaniya. Soviet scientists, physicians and philosophers discuss medicine and biology as sociohumanitarian sciences and the links between the natural and social sciences. One participant says public interest in parapsychology, UFOs and astrology reflects a human need for miracles during social crisis. He also criticizes parapsychology experiments and Uri Geller's performances.
“National Academy of Sciences”1 page
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24. V.I. Shamshurin: Is there a difference (and in what manner) between the inner world of a patient and the inner world of a healthy person? In other words, if we turn to the specific work of a physician, is it helpful for him to know the particular features of the mind of his patients-both ailing and healthy? For instance, preop, during the operation and postop? What mental sets of the patient favor the achieving of health and which ones harm it? On this level, what are your tested procedures for "'translating'" or converting certain mental sets of the "'respondents'" into others? Are these being studies? 25. A.S. Ivanov: How can these be combined or, more accurately, how can healthy internal spiritual activity be made from sick? This question is important, in my view, from any viewpoint. Both as a "'eternal, fatal'" question of philosophy as well as an urgent, applied question for the research sociologist developing a concrete social program in the area of state, ethnic relations or a physician struggling directly for the health of a specific person. 26. Unfortunately, in medicine the answers to the given question is a particular matter worked out by each physician by trial and error. And as a result-everyone knows to say the least. Basically, this is studied in the medical schools and this is written about in the special scientific research and practical manuals. But nowhere do they write or teach about what a person thinks in experiencing pain! 27. Generally, the role of thought and conscious motives in our work (both for the physician and for the patient) for me has assumed an ever-greater role. Seemingly, this is a philosophical question but in medicine it is pertinent as never before. Who should be considered sick? How does ailing flesh influence optimistic spirits? These are not abstract questions. Behind them, in essence, stands society's attitude toward the disabled. To what degree are they to be considered equal to persons with normal motor activity? Regardless of all declarations about humanism, the very fact that our subway and underpasses, our stairwells are not adapted for wheelchairs (which, incidentally, are produced in insufficient numbers and of poor quality) bespeaks a great deal. And the birth of sick children? In antiquity this question was easily resolved as they were thrown off the Tarpeian Rock. Our culture based upon charity and veneration of life, that is, on principles deriving from Christianity, cannot permit itself such a harsh equating of the internal and external world, such vulgar and even harsh materialism of paganism: ``In a healthy body is a healthy mind.'' Here medicine should be clearly aware of its own philosophical positions. The mystery of life must be held secret, ``it must not be harmed,'' as the same Hippocrates said. To assume that the spirit, mental richness and fullness of life can
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 13 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.