Hippocrates' Oath

Abstract

I swear before my gods, my ancestors, my teachers, my fellow healers and apprentices, and by all the arts and knowledge I was privileged to learn, that I will stand by these words: I will love those who taught me these arts as I love my parents and I will offer my skills to the young with the same generosity that they were given to me. And I will never ask them for gold, but demand that they stand by this covenant in return. I also swear that if I earn fame and wealth, I will share it with my masters and my students. I will soothe the pain of anyone who needs my art, and if I don’t know how, I will seek the counsel of my teachers. I will offer those who suffer all my attention, my science and my love. Never will I betray them or risk their wellbeing to satisfy my vanity. I will not hurt my fellow or put a knife to his flesh if I don’t know how, or give him an herb to soothe his pain, even if he begs for it in anguish, if it might take away his breath. I will never harm my suffering friend, because life is sacred, from the tender fruit that he once was in his mother’s womb to that first sigh he gave out between her legs when he opened his eyes to the world. I will try to understand his sorrows but his secrets will never leave my ears. Under no circumstance I will use his body to advance my knowledge or my fame, unless in his last moment, he or his widow give me his corpse, so that his death may help me understand how to soothe another’s pain. I pray that the attention I give to those who put themselves in my hands be rewarded with happiness. And in honor of