THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES BY JOHN YOUNG M.D. KEEPER OF HUNTERIAN MUSEUM GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS Publishers to the University 1900 TO THE GLASGOW UNIVERSITY MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY. When your President courteously procured for me the opportunity of commenting on the Oath (now a Declaration) which Graduands have to subscribe, I fear that I evilly repaid you by taking up too much of your time. When asked to allow the translation of the Oath to appear in the "University Magazine," I had pleasure in complying with the request, and in forwarding the MS. to the printer. To-day, 11th January, the "Magazine" appears without my contribution, or rather with that contribution blacked out—an act of grave insolence or gross stupidity. I print, sooner than I had intended, the substance of my remarks, and ask your acceptance thereof. I would record my deep regret that I have been made the involuntary cause of trouble and anxiety to my good friend, Mr. John Muir, and those who conduct the "Magazine" on behalf of their fellow-students. My regret is enhanced by the discovery that their actions are liable to the control of foolish persons, whose censorship might have been advantageously exercised on other occasions. JOHN YOUNG. The Oath of Hippocrates is a document of high antiquity, probably of pre-Hippocratic age. It contains reference to some similar formula pre-existent which exercised restraint on intrants to the profession, to the Art, τέχνη, which we have no equivalent, since the Greeks did not then cut the profession into two—theoretical and practical. The phrase from Aristophanes cited by Littré, Adams, and others indicates that the formula was even popularly familiar. Among the Hippocratic writings is a treatise De Prisca Medicina attributed by Plato to Hippocrates, and justly regarded by Littré as of high value. Textual criticism leads others to look on it as the work of a later sophist; but by whomsoever written, it is a narrative animated by somewhat of the same spirit—the strong desire to maintain the credit and dignity of the profession. The Oath is of great archæological interest. I give a translation of a Latin version, of which there are several, not the least elegant being that formerly administered to graduates before modern ways replaced it by a law declaration in English; the elegant Latin prayer is not yet, I am happy to say, disused on public occasions: 'I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Aesculapius and Hygeia and Panacea, and I call to witness all the gods and goddesses, that I will, to the best of my power and judgment, keep this oath and this written declaration in its integrity. I shall hold him, who has taught me this art, as a parent. I shall devote my life to him, and shall supply him with all of which he has need. I shall regard his sons as my brothers, and, if they wish to be taught, shall teach them this art without fee or indenture. I shall make sharers in the teaching by precepts, and listeners to the oral instruction, and participators of the other modes of instruction, both the sons of my own teacher and those who have bound themselves by indenture and dedicated themselves by the medical oath: but none others. Further, so far as concerns the healing of patients, I shall prescribe to them, as my powers and judgment direct, suitable diet, and shall forbid what is detrimental and injurious. No entreaties shall induce me to give to any one noxious drugs, nor shall I take part in any such counsels.