[The meaning of Aristoteles' epikeia for medical treatment]

Epikeia was originally employed for the interpretation of legal conceptions in the ancient Greek polis. Based on rational-guided clemency, epikeia was extended to human justice in individual cases, and culminated in an independent virtue of natural law beyond mere jurisdiction. Thus, the virtue of epikeia is built on the principles of human rights and dignity of man. As a "principle of equity", the virtue of epikeia allows doctors medical, ethical and individual decisions with respect to the personality and dignity of patients especially in those cases, which have ben proved to be impersonal due to the extremes of medical over- and underdoing so far. Epikeia is adjusted to the individual conscience, which is based on knowledge and certainty, and which expects responsibility and forbearance by the doctor. Epikeia is motivated by the pursuit of well-being of the patient in his inviolable personality and dignity. The sense of epikeia derives from teh affirmation of man as the only purpose of man and from the bliss of medical profession. The virtue of epikeia assembles different numbers of other virtues, and is therefore called on fo the cardinal virtues of medicine. Epikeia is te proof of moral strength and conscience of doctors.