Interest in the relationship between spirituality, religion, and clinical care has increased in the last 15 years, but clinicians need more concrete guidance about this topic. This article defines spirituality and religion, identifies the fundamental spiritual issues that serious illness raises for patients, and argues that physicians have a moral obligation to address patients' spiritual conce...

BACKGROUND Functional neck/shoulder stiffness is one of the most well-known indications for acupuncture treatment in Japan. There is little evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment for functional neck/shoulder stiffness. Research using two different placebos may allow an efficient method to tease apart the components of real acupuncture from various kinds of 'non-specific' effect...

Bali is a fascinating island. Within one cultural sphere major contrasts exist side by side and form as such an ideal laboratory for anthropological research. Only a few hours drive from the centre of globalized tourism at Kuta beach, which was in October 2002 hit by a terrorist attack, one can find in the mountain area of inland Bali ancient temple systems and ritual networks which date back t...

We thank the commentators for their thoughtful remarks. We have arranged our responses to the commentators thematically; within each section we start first with general comments before discussing particular statements by individual commentators. We also thank the Journal of Medical Ethics for publishing our original manuscript, the accompanying commentaries, an editorial from the Journal staff,...

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The earliest more or less datable events in South Asia’s cultural history, the deathof the Buddha and the composition of Pāṇini’s grammar – respectively five andfour centuries before the beginning of the common era – antedate with one to twocenturies the start of a slow and hesitant shift from orality to the writtentransmission of sacred and literary texts in South Asia. Wit...