THE OATH

Introduction

OF all the Hippocratic writings the Oath, in spite of its shortness, is perhaps the most interesting to the general reader and also to the modern medical man. Whatever its origin, it is a landmark in the ethics of medicine.

Yet its exact relationship to the history of medicine is unknown, and apparently, in our present state of knowledge, unknowable. The student must, at every stage of the inquiry, confess his ignorance. What is the date of the Oath ? Is it mutilated or interpolated ? Who took the oath, all practitioners or only those belonging to a guild ? What binding force had it beyond its moral sanction ? Above all, was it ever a reality or merely a " counsel of perfection" ? To all these questions the honest inquirer can only say that for certain he knows nothing.

Such being the case it is most important to realize clearly what actually is known. In the first place, the Oath was admitted to be genuinely Hippocratic by Erotian.

As to internal evidence, the Oath, besides binding all who take it to certain moral rules of practice, makes them also promise to act in a certain manner towards co-practitioners.

The taker of the oath--

(1) Will treat the children of his teacher as though they were his brothers ;