The OathHippocrates

The Oath is the short ethical covenant traditionally attributed to Hippocrates and preserved in the Hippocratic Corpus, though its exact authorship and date (within the fifth to fourth centuries BC) remain uncertain. The physician swears by Apollo the Healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses to fulfill the oath according to ability and judgment. He will honor his teacher as a parent, share his livelihood, and teach the art without fee to his teacher's sons and to pupils bound by indenture and oath, but to no one else. He will use regimens to benefit the sick and will keep them from harm and injustice; he will not give a deadly drug or counsel such a course, nor give a woman an abortive pessary. He will keep his life and art pure, leave cutting for stone to those who practice that craft, enter houses only to help the sick, abstain from sexual abuse of free or slave, man or woman, and hold in silence whatever he sees or hears that should not be published. The oath closes with a prayer for reputation if he keeps faith, and the opposite if he forswears himself. Later medical codes, from the medieval Christian versions through the Declaration of Geneva, adapt or replace its clauses, but the original remains the classical statement of the physician's obligations of loyalty, non-maleficence, and confidentiality.