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Science · Medicine & the body

The Hippocratic oath

5th–4th century BC

Medicine — ethics and the Hippocratic Corpus

The ancient Greek pledge of medical conduct, part of the Hippocratic Corpus and traditionally attributed to Hippocrates of Kos, though almost certainly not written by him. It opens by swearing by Apollo Physician, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea; it binds the swearer to honour his teacher as a parent and teach his teacher's sons without fee; and it forbids giving a deadly drug, supplying an abortive pessary, cutting for the stone, exploiting patients sexually, or revealing what is heard in the course of treatment. The famous phrase "first do no harm" is not in it.

How to spot them

  • ▸Sworn by Apollo Physician, Asclepius, and his daughters Hygieia and Panacea
  • ▸'First do no harm' comes from the Epidemics, not from this text
  • ▸The modern replacement is the Declaration of Geneva, adopted in 1948
  • ▸Part of the Hippocratic Corpus, some sixty works of mixed authorship
  • ▸The emblem of medicine is the single-snaked rod of Asclepius, not the winged caduceus

Key facts

An opening invocation of Apollo Physician, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea

Hygieia gives us hygiene, Panacea a cure-all

The phrase 'first do no harm', which is in fact nowhere in the document

The nearest original is in the Epidemics: to help, or at least to do no harm

The Declaration of Geneva, adopted by the World Medical Association in 1948 (1948)

The modern replacement, framed after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors

A refusal to cut for the stone, leaving it to those who practise that work

The clause separating physicians from surgeons and lithotomists

A promise to teach the art without fee to one's teacher's sons

It is as much a guild contract as an ethical code

Attributed to a physician born on the island of Kos around 460 BC (460 BC)

Hippocrates, the father of medicine; the text is probably by a later hand

Prohibitions on giving a deadly drug and on supplying an abortive pessary

The clauses most often cited in modern debates on euthanasia and abortion

A duty of silence about whatever is seen or heard in the course of treatment

The ancestor of medical confidentiality

Key ideas

  • It is a guild document as much as a moral one: much of it is about obligations to teachers and fellow practitioners, not to patients.
  • Almost no medical school now administers the classical text; modernised versions, such as Louis Lasagna's of 1964, or national codes of practice have replaced it.
  • Its historical significance is the claim that medicine is a craft with internal standards, answerable to its own ethics rather than to magic or priestcraft.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Hippocrates of Kos lived roughly 460–370 BC and is called the father of medicine
  • •The oath belongs to the Hippocratic Corpus, some sixty texts of varied date and authorship, and was probably not written by Hippocrates
  • •It begins by swearing by Apollo Physician, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses
  • •'Primum non nocere' — first do no harm — is a later Latin tag; the sentiment comes from Epidemics Book I
  • •The World Medical Association adopted the Declaration of Geneva in September 1948 as a modern successor, and has revised it several times, most recently in 2017
  • •Other works in the corpus include the Aphorisms, which open 'Life is short, the art long', and On the Sacred Disease, which argues that epilepsy has natural causes
  • •Hippocratic medicine rested on the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile
  • •The Hippocratic facies is the drawn, pinched appearance of a patient close to death, described in the Prognostic
  • •The symbol of medicine is properly the rod of Asclepius, with a single snake; the caduceus, with two snakes and wings, belongs to Hermes
  • •Swearing any oath is not a legal requirement to practise medicine in the United Kingdom; the General Medical Council's guidance serves that purpose

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources