ART. 15. HISTORY OF MEDICINE EXHIBITS WHITEBKEAD. 37 



Certainly from the time of Hippocrates (4G0 P>. C.) to tiie present it lias been 

 administered or read to the graduates of medical schools, as a classical ex- 

 pression of the high moral principles which should govern the physician in his 

 personal conduct, and in his relations toward his patients. 



" I swear by Apollo, physician, by Aesculapius, by Hygeia and Panacea, 

 by all the gods and all the goddesses — taking them to witness — that I will ful- 

 fill with my strength and my capacity this oath and engagement: I will 

 place my master in medicine in the same rank with the authors of my life ; 

 I will share with him my fortune, and in necessity I will provide for his 

 wants ; I will regard his sons as brothers, and if they desire to learn medicine, 

 I will teach them without pay. I will communicate my precepts, my oral les- 

 sons, and all other instruction to my sons, to the sons of my master, and to those 

 disciples who are bound by an engagement and an oath according to the medi- 

 cal law, but to no others. I will direct the regimen of my patients for their 

 advantage, to the best of my ability and judgment. I will abstain from all 

 wrong and injustice. I will not furnish poison to anyone who solicits it, 

 neither will I make a suggestion of it to any one; neither will I furnish to any 

 woman an abortive. I will pass my life, and I will exercise my art, in in- 

 nocency and purity. I will not perform the operation of lithotomy, but will 

 leave it to those who occupy themselves therewith. Into whatsoever house 

 I enter, it shall be for the good of my patients, keeping myself from all cor- 

 rupting conduct, and especially from the seduction of women and boys, free or 

 slaves. Whatever I see or hear in society, in the exercise, or even not in the 

 exercise, of my profession, I will keep secret, if it is not necessary to divulge 

 it, regarding discretion as a duty in all such cases. If I fulfill this oath, with- 

 out violation, may it be given me to enjoy happily life and my profession, 

 honored forever among men ; if I violate it and perjure myself, let the op- 

 posite fate be my lot." Cat. No. 143,521. U.S.N.M. 



Glaudius Galen. — Next to Hippocrates, the most illustrious of the ancient 

 physicians. Born at Pergamos. Asia Minor, (130 A. D.) son of the celebrated 

 architect Nicon. He began the study of medicine at 16. and when 20 years of 

 age he placed himself imder the instruction of eminent physicians at Smyrna, 

 Alexandria, and elsewhere. In the j-ear 164 he went to Rome, where he gained 

 great renown for his skill in medicine, and also aroused the bitter jealousy of 

 his rivals. His vast learning, his eloquence, his voluminous writings on medi- 

 cine, philosophy, geometry, and grammar, gained for him the greatest admira- 

 tion, and almost religious veneration. Galen was an enthusiastic admirer of 

 Hippocrates, and used all the power of his genius and the influence of his 

 name to bring back the practice of medicine to the foundation laid for it by 

 Hippocrates in the study of the natural history of disease. The writings of 

 Galen continued to have almost undisputed authority in medical practice 

 down to the sixteenth century. (Fig. 24.) Cat. No. 143,522, U.S.N.M. 



MATERIA MEDICA OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS. 



"About 800 years separated the periods of Aesculapius and Hip- 

 pocrates. * * * Leclerc has collected a list of nearly 400 simples 

 which he finds alluded to as remedies in the writings of Hippocrates. 

 But these include various milks, wines, fruits, vegetables, fats, and 

 other substances which we should hardly call drugs now. Omitting 

 these and certain other substances which can not be identified I 



