Tribute to prof. Valentin Voino-Iasenezkii (Archbishop Luca) (1877-1961)

Nowadays all of us are witnesses of the exciting progress of science and medicine in particular. The rapidly expanded knowledge of human physiology and genome and technological advance made possible the treatment of previously incurable disease and a successfull performance of more complex surgical interventions. The holistic approach in medicine contemplates the human as an integrum of spirit, soul and body and is a prerequisite for the successful treatment. Unfortunately, the current trends in medicine led to subdivision of the distinct major disciplines into a large number of subspecialties with not seldom a poor coordination between them. Although it is associated with a better outcome in certain cases, on other hand, „it made difficult to “see the forest for the trees,” that is, to realize the entirety and myriad of interrelationships within a certain discipline“ [1] and may lead to poorer outcome, for example in oncology, trauma surgery and others. In this light I would like to focus the readers‘ attention to one eminent, but not well known physician and researcher of 20th century – the professor of anatomy and surgery Valentin Voino-Iasenezkii (Archbishop Luca), who is an epitomy of the one of the principles of Hippocrates that „medicine is there where is the love to the people“ and is a paragon of enthusiastic engagement.