PHYSICIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 621 



sented as having sent a pestilence upon the Greek host. In his dis- 

 course on ancient medicine — a singular title for a book written more 

 than four centuries before the christian era, whether by Hippocrates 

 or some one else — we find the idea of the survival of the fittest clearly 

 indicated; in fact, many of the Greeks had more than an inkling of 

 it. His apprehension of gradual evolution is also shown by the asser- 

 tion that the vegetables used for food are the outcome of experiments 

 with coarser kinds and the deleterious effects upon the health of those 

 that were rejected. He takes the ground that a man can not under- 

 stand the medical art. unless he knows, as far as that is possible, what 

 man is. He holds that the physician should be skilled in nature; but 

 what he defines as ' nature ' is not cosmological, it is rather the etiology 

 of disease and the laws of hygiene. He also speaks of the ' common 

 herd of physicians.' Evidently professional pride is not the latest born 

 of time's offspring. Among the most interesting documents included 

 among the writings of Hippocrates is the physician's oath. While it 

 may not have been formulated by the master, it undoubtedly represents 

 the principles of his school. Thus early had Greek physicians formed 

 themselves into a guild and pledged themselves to certain rules of 

 conduct. These guilds were, however, not secret associations or fra- 

 ternities and had no professional arcana different from those of the 

 present day. The novitiate pledged himself to regard his teacher as 

 equally dear with his own parents ; to hold his sons in equal esteem with 

 his own brothers; to teach them and his own sons the medical art 

 without fee, if they desired to learn it; to keep aloof from whatever 

 is detrimental to health; to give no deadly drug even when asked; to 

 pass his life in purity and holiness; to abstain from any harmful act 

 in whatsoever house he might enter for the benefit of the sick; to 

 divulge no secrets connected with his professional practise, and to 

 refuse to administer to any woman a drug that will produce abortion. 

 It is evident from the oath here given in substance that the morals of 

 the medical fraternity were, at least in theory, far in advance of those 

 of the general public and of many well-known philosophers by pro- 

 fession. 



