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The classical origins of our medical ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Armelle Debru
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Extract

The tenets of medical ethics laid down in the Hippocratic Collection are discussed together with their practical limits. The essential dilemmas considered have not changed fundamentally.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 479 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1999

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References

Notes

1. Primum non nocere is, however, a late Latin adaptation of the original Hippocratic sentence ‘to be of use or at least to do no harm’ (Epidemics I, 5). The central part of the Oath is well known (3–8): ‘… And I will use regimens for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment, but from what is to their harm or injustice I will keep them. And I will not give a drug that is deadly to anyone if asked for it, nor will I suggest the way to such a counsel. And likewise I will not give a woman a destructive pessary. And in a pure and holy way I will guard my life and my techne …. And about whatever I may see or hear in treatment, or even without treatment, in the life of human beings - things that should not ever be blurted out outside - I will remain silent …’ Translated by von Staden, H. (1996) ‘In a pure and holy way’: Personal and professional conduct in the Hippocratic Oath?, in The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 51, 407.Google Scholar

2. Nutton, V. (1993) Beyond the Hippocratic Oath, in Wear, A., Geyer-Kordesch, J. and French, R. (eds) Doctors and ethics: the earlier historical setting of professional ethics. Clio Medica, 24, 28.Google Scholar ‚It is a paradox that the Hippocratic Oath, which, on my interpretation, gained authority precisely because of its ethical compatibility with Christianity, should now so often be cited to resolve moral medical dilemmas that are largely the result of the decline of that Christian moral consensus that gave it its authority’.

3. See Edelstein, L. (1956) The professional ethics of the Greek physician. Bulletin of History of Medicine, 29, 391–419Google Scholar. Reprinted in Oswei Temkin and Temkin, C. Lilian (eds) (1987) Ancient Medicine. Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) pp. 319–348.Google Scholar

4. Galen, , Commentary on Hippocrates Epidemics 1, 50Google Scholar (XVII/1 p. 148–9 Kühn)

5. See Kudlien, F. (1970) Medical ethics and popular ethics in Greece and Rome. Clio Medica, 5, 91–121.Google Scholar

6. Hippocrates, Fractures 36. He admits that sometimes the doctor is forced to intervene: ‘If you are forced to attempt reduction …’

7. On these vivisections, see von Staden, H. (1989) The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar

8. Grmek, M.D. and Gourevitch, D. (1985) Les expériences pharmacologiques dans l'Antiquité, Archives internationales d'Histoire des Sciences 111/115, 3–27.Google Scholar

9. Naturalis Historia 29, 20: Discunt periculis nostris et experimenta per mortes agunt

10. Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus (XII 253 Kühn)