Introduzione

The volume investigates the historical roots of the diseases we now call genetic and / or hereditary, laying the terminological and scientific premises that are the basis of modern and contemporary reflection on genetic disease, here animated by the thread of continuity and of strong discontinuity with thought ancient. In this sense, a historical-critical retrospective is presented which, sinking its roots in the lexicographic investigation of the fundamental terms of modern embryogenetic thought, questions the historical and epistemic validity of some concepts and key-words of the post-genomic era, between which of causality, or the relationship between nature and culture, to touch the most sensitive core of contemporary biopolitical thought, namely the eugenic question and the limits of anthropopoiesis.