OATH

I SWEAR by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Health, by Panacea and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture. To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents ; to make him partner in my livelihood ; when he is in need of money to share mine with him ; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture ; to impart precept,1 oral instruction, and all other instruction2 to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the physician's oath, but to nobody else. I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen

[p. 301] therein. Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men,3 if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets. Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art ; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.

1 Apparently the written rules of the art, examples of which are to be found in several Hippocratie treatises. These books were not published in the strict sense of the word, but copies would be circulated among the members of the " physicians' union."

2 Probably, in modern English, " instruction, written, oral and practical."

3 This remarkable addition is worthy of a passing notice. The physician must not gossip, no matter how or where the subject-matter for gossip may have been acquired ; whether it be in practice or in private life makes no difference.

Hippocrates Collected Works I. Hippocrates. W. H. S. Jones. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1868.

National Library of Medicine History of Medicine Division provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by Data Entry and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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