Extensive historical sleuthing reveals that the word "bioethics" and the field of study it names experienced, in 1970/1971, a "bilocated birth" in Madison, Wisconsin, and in Washington, D.C. Van Rensselaer Potter, at the University of Wisconsin first coined the term; and André Hellegers, at Georgetown University, at the very least, latched onto the already-existing word "bioethics" and first used it in an institutional way to designate the focused area of inquiry that became an academic field of learning and a movement regarding public policy and the life sciences. A further comparison of the Potter and the Hellegers/Georgetown understandings of bioethics and the relative acceptance of the two views will appear in the March 1995 issue of this journal.

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An article by Warren Reich in the December 1994 issue of this journal concludes that the word "bioethics" and the field of study it names experienced a "bilocated birth" in 1970/1971 under Van Rensselaer Potter, at the University of Wisconsin, and André Hellegers, at Georgetown University. Further historical inquiry confirms (1) that there were, from the start, some major differences—even clashes—between the Potter and the Hellegers/Georgetown understandings of bioethics; and (2) that the Hellegers/Georgetown approach came to be the more widely accepted meaning of the term, while Potter's idea of bioethics remained largely marginalized. However, this inquiry also results in a third, unanticipated, conclusion: that Hellegers (in contrast to the dominant model offered by the Georgetown scholars) actually proposed a global approach to bioethics, bringing his vision much closer to Potter's evolving view than previously has been acknowledged.

This article reports on an inquiry into ideas used to justify the shift of medical ethos in Germany prior to and during the Nazi era, specifically the principles of care advocated by Erwin Liek and Karl Kotschau, the era's most influential medical theorists, who argued that commitments to care of individual sick persons (Fursorge) had to give way to a preventive care that respects emerging needs of the entire society (Vorsoge). The article examines both the socio-cultural factors that shaped, and the far-reaching effects of, this manipulation of care. It argues that we should be attentive to the meaning and requirements of the care revealed in this debate, the ancient Greek idea of care as a concerned moral option.

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