The Classical Hippocratic Oath
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The Classical Hippocratic Oath
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
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Greek Medicine was quite advanced for its time. The early works of Homer, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Alcaemon and others all show an advanced knowledge of physiology, surgical and medicinal practices.
The Hellenic (a name of ancient Greek people.) themselves did not have a concept of germ theory, but rather their view of human physiology was predominated by the ideas of essentialism. Essentialism was the belief that every living organism alive (this theory was applied to humans first and then to an eventual evolutionary paradigm), contained certain mixtures of the four elements (earth, air, fire and water) called humours. The humours consisted of Black Bile, Phlegm, Yellow Bile, and Blood. Depending on the mixtures of the four humours, a person would have specific traits ascribed to them, these traits were not only intellectual, but were also physiological in expression. How a person arrived at their specific combination of humours was largely due to geography. For example, if someone was born with black hair, it was because they came from a specific region of the world, which mixed the four humours together in specific combination to create the mixture for black hair.
The idea of Essentialism eventually proliferated into an evolutionary paradigm (For more information on early evolutionary theory visit the Natural Evolution web). Because a person was born with a specific mixture of humours, there was ideally a perfect mixture of humours which would create a well balanced individual. Because Essentialist thought had some basis in geography, the ideal place for a good balance of humours was (naturally) found in the center of Greek culture, namely in the Aegean, and in and around Athens.
By the 6th century BC, Greek medicine had begun to delve into a somewhat modern science. Prior to the 6th century, medicinal practices focused largely on the supernatural, with a more clinical approach, which involved observation and experience. Still heavily reliant upon the ideas of Essentialism, Greek scholars such as Alcaemon, and Empedocles stressed that illness was caused by a disturbance in the four elements, (or humours) within a persons body. It was not until the time of Hippocratic in the fifth century BC, that disease was accepted as coming from an identifiable source, and concepts such as prognosis (the eventual outcome of a disease) and case histories were introduced.
By the 5th century BC, medical schools were established at Kos, and Cnidus. These medical schools flourished in the fifth century, and from its students and practitioners came the "Corpus Hippocraticum". The "Corpus Hippocraticum" was an anthology written by several authors (some were students of the Hippocratic) which contained the Hippocratic Oath and other important writings. Though the Greek physician Hippocrates is generally credited as the father of modern medicine, and the writer of the Hippocratic Oath, it is more than likely that Hippocrates did not write the Oath. Even so he has been cited and credited with the founding of modern medicine, with his works having been studied well into the 19th century AD. Other contributors to Greek medicine include: Aristotle, for his comparative anatomical studies of both animals and humans, Herophilus, who performed the first public dissection, and Erasistratus, who worked on the physiology of the brain, nerves, arteries, and veins.
More information about Ancient Greek Medicine and Hippocrates