C. Manni The focusing of general interest and of many disciplines on disaster medicine is an interesting and recent phenomenon in our society. Disasters have by now left the his torical and philosophical sphere and finally entered the operational arena. Modern man, in other words, no longer accepts disasters in a passive and fatalistic manner, but claims to be able to control them like so many other forces of nature. The new approach is aimed at preventing, containing, and remedying the invariably tragic consequences of these events. The role of medicine in this context is of fundamental...