Letter from Professor Tadeusz Koszarowski to Dr Wiktor Chmielarczyk
Warsaw, Feb. 19, 2002.
Dear Colleague,
I have read your book "Słowo, które leczy" (The word that cures), so kindly offered to me, with true interest and genuine satisfaction. I am glad to see that the staff of the Oncology Centre includes colleagues who can find in medicine something more than just a more or less unpleasant job that allows them to earn their lives. As far as I understand it, medicine stripped of its idealistic and, in a way, metaphysical components, would be something pretty trivial, merely trying to repair a set of organs (or, using the vulgarized views of Virchov-it is repairing a bag full of pluck and guts). Your way of thinking, however, demonstrates that there are people among us who can understand the notion of "logos." This Greek concept (I also have philological education) has a broader meaning than the Polish "słowo" (word) for it also means "thought," "understanding" and even more than that-"an idea." This would, perhaps, need to be further elaborated on as the Greek "logos" does not directly translate into the Latin "verbum" but I will stop at this point to avoid hazy explanations. Thank you once again and please forgive my writing on this quality paper but this is because of my poor sight, alas.
Dear colleague, please accept my words of true friendship and regards
Tadeusz Koszarowski
This remarkable letter from the doyen of Polish oncology has been a great honour for us. Us, because the authors of this Web site are those who concocted the book mentioned in the letter: Wiktor Chmielarczyk-the author, and Andrzej Pruszyński-the publisher. Professor Koszarowski's letter is one of the factors that motivates us to work on developing theoretical oncology.
To see the original Letter-click here (76 kB)
