Ethics and the anthropological medicine of the Heidelberg School: reciprocity and solidarity1

As attested by diff erent sources, the period between WWI and WWII was fertile in proposals regarding science, society, and humankind all over Europe. Th e fi eld of medicine was characterized by the perception of a crisis in its theoretical and practical fundaments and the emergence of numerous movements oriented towards their reformulation. Most of them were confi ned to the realm of specialized groups while others were linked to the political changes that characterized the period. It is the time of the Fascist movement in Italy, of the Weimar Republic and the birth of Nazism in Germany, of the Revolution in Russia and of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.