MEDICAL OATH. — In antiquity, the practice of medicine had a sacred character. Well-defined rules governed the physician’s activity, which was almost priestly in nature, and the oath prescribed by Hippocrates for physicians is famous; it forms the moral foundation of an endeavor entirely devoted to the benefit of humanity.
The authenticity of the medical oath has been thoroughly examined by historians, especially Triller in his *Settore*, along with Daremberg and Littré; recent studies confirm that it can be confidently attributed to the great physician of Cos.
The oath begins with a sacramental formula that is distinctly religious in tone: “I swear by Apollo the physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses who may serve as my witnesses, that I will fulfill this oath and this covenant to the best of my ability and judgment.” After invoking these witnesses, the oath proceeds to the vows the future physician undertakes with deliberate will. First, regarding teachers: he must assist them as if they were his own parents; then he pledges to share his profession with his own sons and the sons of his teachers, as well as with anyone who takes the oath and becomes his student, and no one else. Thus emerges the concept of a closed caste; it is well known, moreover, that Hippocrates belonged to the Asclepiadae, among whom the art of Asclepius was passed down from father to son.
More significant is the section concerning the patient. The oath-taker promises to respect the life of others with scrupulous conscience, abstaining from administering poisons, procuring abortions, performing lithotomy, or any improper act in the sickroom. He must keep secret whatever he hears or sees during treatment, practicing his art with innocence and purity. As can be seen, within a few brief phrases are contained the moral precepts of Hippocratic doctrine, much like the doctrinal sections in the books of the *Corpus Hippocraticum*. However, the maxims of the oath cannot be considered apart from the broader body of precepts found in works such as *De medico*, *De recenti ornatu*, and *De veteri disciplina*, which pertain to professional practice—such as patient observation, rashness in diagnosis, and the prescription of medicines. These precepts shape the physician into an honest person in both life and science, free from presumption and greed, serene, reserved, and discreet—a model that, even after twenty-five centuries, remains the standard of professional ethics.
These foundations of medical ethics proved so sound that not only did the Roman world (as seen in Soranus of Ephesus, who expanded and refined the precepts) recognize their validity, but Christianity also integrated them into the broader sphere of Christian duty. A religion that inculcates love for one’s neighbor—and all the more so when that neighbor is suffering—could not help but elevate to a supernatural plane what the ancients regarded as a particular virtue of a caste. Thus, the norms of the Hippocratic oath do not lose their value over time. They are found written in the form of a cross in a 12th-century codex, and later, Clement VII decreed that graduates, naturally with the names of the deities altered, should swear the same oath Hippocrates required and prescribed. There were two oaths that physicians took: one at graduation and another upon entering the medical guild. The first repeated Hippocrates’ formulas, and the duties derived from them are echoed clearly in the constitutions issued in 1232 by Frederick II for the University of Salerno. To the second oath were added specific deontological norms, varying from city to city with penalties and fines, and requiring obedience to the guild statutes. From the 14th century onward, matters concerning medical studies often became the subject of detailed prescriptions; for example, the practice of anatomical dissection, and after the Council of Trent, precautions against witchcraft and the relations of Catholic physicians with those of different faiths. Yet, apart from precepts that have disappeared with the passage of time and the progress of medicine, the moral line of the physician’s mission has never deviated in its essential aspects from the Hippocratic oath (v. PHYSICIAN).