Gnothi Seauton – Know Thyself
This motto is also inscribed on a stone plaque in the entrance area of the University of Innsbruck (photo).
This inscription in the porch of the temple of Apollo in Delphi also applies to genetic diagnostics in a special way: It is not only important whether a prediction is correct, but above all whether one draws the right consequences for oneself.
An example of how this is not always successful is famously Oedipus. His parents Laios and Iokaste, royal couple in Thebes, were prophesied in the Oracle of Delphi that a son would kill his father and marry his mother. After a son was born, he was abandoned but did not die and grew up in Sikyon or Corinth in the Peloponnese without knowing his „genetic“ origin. As a young man, Oedipus in turn consulted the oracle and received the same answer. Horrified, he wandered northwards so that the prophecy would not come true on his supposed parents. At a narrow crossroads, an argument ensued with the driver of another carriage – whose passenger was Laios, whom Oedipus, however, did not know. The escalation led to Laios and his driver being killed by Oedipus, thus unwittingly fulfilling the first part of the prophecy. Further on, Oedipus freed Thebes from the Sphinx by solving the famous riddle (…four-footed in the morning, two-footed at noon, three-footed in the evening…). As a reward, he was made King of Thebes and given Iocaste as his wife, thus unwittingly fulfilling the second part of the prophecy. It was only when a plague broke out in Thebes many years later, linked by the Delphic Oracle to the killing of Laios, that the truth came to light through the blind seer Teiresias. Iocaste hanged herself, Oedipus gouged out his eyes and is led out of Thebes by his daughter Antigone in the picture below.
What had happened? The predictions of the oracle in Delphi were always correct, but they were not understood correctly, and Laios, Iocaste and Oedipus drew the wrong conclusions from them. In medical genetics, we try to ensure through comprehensive genetic counselling that the persons concerned understand the often complex findings well and draw the right consequences for themselves.
