A HISTORY OF MEDICINE
The Oath is worth quoting in its entirety in one of the
numerous English renderings:
" / swear by Apollo the Physician, by Aesculapius, by Hygeia, 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, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own
sons, the sons of my teacher, and to pupils who have taken the physicians'
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 therein. Into what-
soever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from
all intentional wrongdoing 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 inter-
course with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will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"
Various embellishments of the oath and hints on professional
conduct are to be found in other Hippocratic writings.1 The
book entitled Precepts, generally believed to be of later date than
Hippocrates, but the work of one of his school, gives the following
advice : " I urge you not to be too grasping, but to consider
carefully your patient's means. Sometimes give your services for
nothing . . . and if there be an opportunity of serving one who
is a stranger in financial straits, give full assistance to all such.
For where there is the love of man, there is also love of the art" (Pm. vL)
The same writer is even more personal when he advises the
physician to " avoid adopting, in order to gain a patient, luxurious
S. Nittis, " Hippocratic Ethics and Present-day Trends Sn Medicine/* Bull ffitf
&t 1942, vol. xix. p. 336; W. H. S. Jones, The Doctors Oath, 191*4
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