You’ve no doubt heard of the Hippocratic Oath, right? Have any idea it what is actually is or why it exists? Hippocrates was an ancient Greek commonly credited with being the father of medicine. He was born around 400 B.C. on the island of Cos. His family had a long history of practicing medicine, but Hippocrates’ claim to fame that separated him from his ancestral lineage was that he was the first to drive a stake between medicine and superstition. Hippocrates treated the study of the body and health as a science, famously making the declaration that illness is a part of nature and must therefore be examined and understood.
It was Hippocrates who got medicine out of the religious temples where it had been practiced by religious figures. He exhorted the people to look at the body apart from the superstitious beliefs and understand that things could be understood only once religious contraints were removed. Rather than viewing medicine in terms of a supernatural entity that belonged alongside worship, Hippocrates felt that it needed to be moved into the sunlight where it could be properly studied apart from the darkness of magic. Hippocrates was a strong proponent of preventative health care as well, urging people to practice cleanliness, and his use of medicine, though often railed against at the time, was usually quite specific and careful. In other words, Hippocrates was the kind of the medical health professional who if he were alive today would never even come close to being appointed Surgeon General, especially not by the current occupant.
Surgeon General appointment aside, Hippocrates probably wouldn’t make it very far in the contemporary American health care system in any capacity. For the oath that doctors have taken for centuries is not due just to the fact that Hippocrates was the first real physician. No, he was far more than just a physician, he was also considered to be quite an honorable man. Honor goes a long way, of course. Just not in the American health care system which is so reliant upon the world of politics and big business. Two arenas in which you would be hard pressed to discover anything even remotely resembling honor.
Hippocrates held tightly to his belief that to be a doctor was a truly noble calling. As a result, he required that anyone who entered the field of medicine must first take an oath to perform up the very highest standards and expectations of standards. The Hippocratic Oath that modern doctors who came after the ancient Greek forbear involves the swearing by the physician that he will always help those who are sick or ill with all the knowledge and power at his disposal. He will not give poison to anyone and will refrain from using his knowledge or instrumentation for any evil reason. And, of course, he will never disclose the private secrets of his patients.
