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Palliative treatments achieve something equally important: they enhance the person. I urge all those who, in various capacities, are involved in the field of palliative treatments to put this commitment into practice by maintaining the spirit of service and remembering that all medical knowledge is truly science, in its noblest sense, only if it is seen as an aid to the good of man, a good that is never achieved by going “against” his life and dignity. It is this capacity for service to the life and dignity of the sick person, even when he or she is elderly, that measures the true progress of medicine and of society as a whole. I repeat the appeal of Saint John Paul II: “Respect, defend, love and serve life, all human life! Only on this path will you find yourselves