St. Elizabeth
 Cologne Master, late 14th cent. 

 1. DAX' CASE: MODERN MEDICINE and HUMAN SUFFERING
Ethical Questions raised by the case of Dax Cowart.  A method of ethical data-gathering and analysis.   Vatican Document (SCDF) on Euthanasia, Jura et Bona. 

 2. THE ANCIENT and MEDIEVAL ORIGINS of CATHOLIC BIOETHICS:
 Hippocrates; Christus Medicus; Early Christian defense of innocent life; The Hippocratic Oath; Monastic medicine; Thomas Aquinas; Frederick II and Salerno; 14th cent. medical and surgical ethics.

3. DEVELOPING MEDICINE and CATHOLIC BIOETHICS (1500-1900):
 De Vitoria on obligatory and non-obligatory nutrition and treatment. Progress in Anatomy and Surgery; Microscopy.  De Lugo and Painful Treatment.  Drugs that work (cinchona, digitalis).  St. Alphonsus Ligouri.  Percival and the AMA 1st Code.  Anesthesia and Antiseptic Surgery.  Infectious disease. Nursing.

4. MODERN MEDICINE and CATHOLIC BIOETHICS (1900-2000):
 Public Health and the Death Rate.  The Eugenics Movement and Pius XI.  WWII, the Nuremberg Code, and Pius XII on human experimentation.  Antimicrobials and antintibiotics. Respirators; Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation.  The 1981 California Bill of Patient Rights. 

5. COMA, DIMINISHED CONSCIOUSNESS, and the PERSISTENT VEGETATIVE STATE

Neurological dilemmas: Distinguishing between inevitable death and severe disability,  The controversy over Nancy Cruzan and Teri Schiavo.

6. BRAIN DEATH

Neurological dilemmas: Distinguishing between death, inevitable death and severe disability.  Alan Shewman, the Pontifical Council, and the Presidential Council.

7. CHRIST AT THE END of LIFE
  Palliative care.  Treatment of pain and the obligation to sustain life.  Withholding and Withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.

8. ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION
Ethical dilemmas concerning the right to donate organs.  Organ donation after brain death and after cardiac death.

9. CHRIST AT THE BEGINNING of LIFE