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OATH AND LAW OF HIPPOCRATES

From "Harvard Classics Volume 38"
Copyright 1910 by P.F. Collier and Son.

This text is placed in the Public Domain, June 1993.


INTRODUCTORY NOTE

HIPPOCRATES, the celebrated Greek physician, was a contemporary
of the historian Herodotus. He was born in the island of Cos between
470 and 460 B.C., and belonged to the family that claimed descent
from the mythical AEsculapius, son of Apollo. There was already a
long medical tradition in Greece before his day, and this he is
supposed to have inherited chiefly through his predecessor Herodicus;
and he enlarged his education by extensive travel. He is said,
though the evidence is unsatisfactory, to have taken part in the
efforts to check the great plague which devastated Athens at the
beginning of the Peloponnesian war. He died at Larissa between 380
and 360 B.C.

The works attributed to Hippocrates are the earliest extant
Greek medical writings, but very many of them are certainly not his.
Some five or six, however, are generally granted to be genuine,
and among these is the famous "Oath." This interesting document
shows that in his time physicians were already organized into a
corporation or guild, with regulations for the training of disciples,
and with an esprit de corps and a professional ideal which, with
slight exceptions, can hardly yet be regarded as out of date.

One saying occurring in the words of Hippocrates has achieved
universal currency, though few who quote it to-day are aware that
it originally referred to the art of the physician. It is the first
of his "Aphorisms": "Life is short, and the Art long; the occasion
fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult. The
physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but
also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate."

THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES

I SWEAR by Apollo the physician and AEsculapius, and Health,
and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my
ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation
-- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my
parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities
if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my
own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn