The New Frontiers of Science

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE* CARLO SIRTORIi The magnificent gifts that I havejust received from the Gasimi Institute1 and from Contessina Germana Gaslini, and the far too laudatory words of Avvocato Carlo Martinengo, president ofthe institute, threaten to bolster my already redoubtable self-satisfaction, so that I must light bonfires to remind myselfofthis world's vanities. I can feel in your words and attitudes a warm, optimistic expectation, the certitude ofthings hoped for, the trust in my missionary zeal—all things that are indispensable to anyone working for the love-borne, love-dedicated Gaslini Institute. I bow before these monuments ofChristian and social charity, which I regard as islands of grace, hope, spiritual enrichment, and salvation, where the noblest spiritual gifts find increase and reach out to the farthest horizons. The Choices I have arrived here after effecting certain choices both aware and upward , led by the dearly loved remembrance of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. When he was awarded the Premio Missione del Medico, and I was asked to prepare the dedicatory text, I wrote: "His choices were all upward directed, from music to philosophy, from sociology to theology, and at last to medicine, which he regarded as the summation ofsciences in which all human knowledge was implemented." From that time I retained in my heart this concept of "choice," the real significance of this uniquely human freedom, which is used so sparingly out oflaziness yet is the only force that can give concrete meaning to our individual life experience. * Based on an address given March 16, 1068 on the occasion of my nomination at general director ofthe G. Gaslini Institute, Genoa, Italy. (Ed. Note: Because of the special nature of this paper, ieferences to the author's own publications are given within the text.) t Fondazione Carlo Erba, Istituzione Culturale Medica, Palazzo Visconti-44 Via Cerva, 20122 Milan, Italy; G. Gaslini Institute, Via Cinque Maggis 39, 16148 Genoa, Italy. 1 The Gaslini Institute of Genoa includes twenty-five hospital and university departments, accommodates about 1,000 patients, and enlists the services ofover 850 people. 23I I have chosen the Gaslini Institute because the new tasks that have been entrusted to me are best attuned to my nature brought to ripeness by events. Each ofus is the fruit ofa certain germinal entity and ofsurrounding circumstances, and we cannot deny our spiritual dispositions. This is why I left the National Cancer Institute in Milan, which gave me a high degree ofspecialization in a limited field. Salvatico2 I like to look back upon my childhood and adolescence—the age span during which "nature" and "nurture" vie for the favors ofthe unexperienced , with the parents, teachers, friends, and books representing the masters. I remember my mother, who waited for me every night and begrudged me every delay with a silence made ofpain and love. I remember her alive and lucid, with a great talent for mathematics; and I remember her on her deathbed—one ofthose interminable deaths that last for years, first taking away talent and mind, and then only in the end taking away the heartbeat and breathing. Such people "are alive and have no more life": you don't know where life ends and death begins. 1 remember my father, who paid with hard work for his honesty, faithfulness to friends, and respect for the family and children. Yet my childhood was not in the family. Being an only male child surrounded by five sisters, I was sent to college whenI was six; and there sour loneliness taught me the resource of abstraction, while it made me salvatico for the rest of mylife. Ilike to recall asaying ofLeonardo's: "Salvatico is he who is saved" —but this word twisting does not repay me of my lost infancy. Then came another college for lower high school, and a third for upper high school. I shall recall among my educators Don Norberto Perini, now the Archbishop of Fermo: a combination educator, teacher, and pater spiritualis whose unflinching estimation doesn't stop surprising me. Don Norberto gave me a second nature, self-criticism, which strips us naked in front of ourselves and confronts us with truth; and a third nature, enthusiasm , which shortens long paths...