[Polish medical ethics in the period 1945-1980]

The purpose of this article is o present that main currents of Polish medical ethics in the years 1945-1980, which the author treats as the 'prehistory' of Poland's contemporary bioethics. The author begins by ascertaining the post-war disappearance of two Polish traditions--that of the Warsaw school of philosopher-physicians (known in the West as the Polish School of Philosophy of Medicine) and the Lwów-Warsaw School of Philosophy. The political system that come into being after 1945 was not conducive to the development of medical ethics, but several clear orientations may be discerned in the utterances of physicians, lawyers, moral technologlans and academic philosophers. The analysis begins with Catholic ethics in its archaic 1950s-vintage form. The author then presents the thinking of ethicians Independent of both the Church and Marxism (the milieu of the journal 'Etyka') as well as the deontological writings of physicians.