In many doctors’ offices, you will see a framed document on the wall called the Hippocratic Oath. This is an oath taken by doctors when they graduate from medical school. What is this oath and who was Hippocrates?

Before the age of scientific medicine, which we have today, man had a form of medicine that depended on magicians and witch doctors. Then, in ancient Egypt and India, a more sensible form of medicine developed. The ancient Egyptians, for example, were good observers. They had medical schools, and practiced surgery. But the treatment of disease was still a part of the Egyptian religion, with prayers, charms, and sacrifices as a part of the treatment.

Scientific medicine had its beginning in Greece when a group of men who were not priests became physicians. The most famous of these, Hippocrates, who lived about 400 B.C., is called “the father of medicine.”

His approach to medicine was scientific. He put aside all superstition, magic, and charms. He and his pupils made careful records of their cases. Some of their observations are considered to be true even today: Weariness without cause indicates disease. When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a good sign. If pain is felt in any part of the body, and no cause can be found, there is mental disorder.

Hippocrates also had strong ideas about what a doctor should be and how he should behave. This is incorporated in his Hippocratic Oath, which among many others contains such ideas as the following:

“I will follow that system of regimen which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel . . . Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it, I see or hear in the life of men which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.”