Opening Pandora's Box: Phrases We Borrowed from the Classics and the Stories Behind Them by Ferdie Addis

Author:Ferdie Addis [Addis, Ferdie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781843176282
Publisher: MichaeloMara
Published: 2011-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

Hippocratic Oath

A solemn promise made by doctors always to uphold medical ethics

Hippocrates of Kos was a legendary figure who was thought to be the founding father of Greek medicine. According to ancient biographers, Hippocrates travelled across the ancient world performing marvellous feats of healing and teaching numerous disciples as he went. He was also said to be the author of the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of medical texts in which could be found the last word in ancient medical science.

The Hippocratic Corpus, which still survives today, was probably written by several authors rather than by one extraordinary man. Even so, the collection is a fascinating record of the way medicine developed as a science in the ancient world. As well as giving practical advice for the treatment of various illnesses, the Hippocratic Corpus also contains one of the world’s earliest statements of medical ethics: the Hippocratic Oath.

These days, some of the terms of the oath (for example, making doctors swear not to seduce any of their patients’ slaves) can seem somewhat old-fashioned. Nevertheless, the essential tenets of modern medical ethics – do no harm, medical confidentiality, don’t kill your patients – are all there in the Hippocratic Oath which is, in modified form, still taken by doctors to this day.

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