University of Texas Health Science Center - IATRO Yearbook (Houston, TX)

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RELIGIOUS MEDICINE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH OATH | swear, by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and god- desses, making them my witnesses, that | will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers of male lineage and to teach them this art — without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but to no one else. ! will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; | will keep them from harm and injustice. ! will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will | make a suggestion to this ef- fect. Similarly, | will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness | will guard my life and my art. ! will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work. Whatever houses | may visit, | will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves. What | may see or hear in the course of the treat- ment or even outside of the treatment in regard to My the life of men, on which no account one must lz spread abroad, | will keep to myself such things == 2 shameful to be spoken about. Statue of Asclepius found in Athens If | fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be Religion satisfies a perpetual desire to explain and granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored give meaning to the unknown. It would, therefore, with fame among all men for all time to come; if | appear that religious medicine (ie., supplications to transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of | the gods for cures) developed as a natural outgrowth all this be my lot. of ancient religious dogma. (Edelstein, p. 6) 6 Hippocratic Oath

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A EULOGY TO DEAN WEBBER Thanks for listening To our words And directing them To their purpose. You were the best To find a way That all could share; And each could bear The truth In open conversation Where the chips would fall Without reproach To reveal The nature of the problem And its solution For the better of us all. But there is one word Left unsaid In our structured manly world, We loved you. Rest in peace, Your work is done, And ours has just begun. To bid your will, We commit to our being To pursue the course You have set for us. Farewell. Frank G. Moody, MD On behalf of the students at the UT Medical School, members of the student senate commemorate the memory of Dean Frank Webber by displaying a plaque in his honor. The students, pictured from left to right with Mrs. Frank Webber are Rosemary Buckle, Bill Davis, and Wesley Wylie. The plaque is now hanging in the Medical School lobby, a main gathering place for students. Dedication 5

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Let oh quart 4 ee ae Ag j eee i pius and his family depicted on votive tablet (c. 370-270 BC) Ascle — ee . Asclepius shown on a metope from the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus (c. 4th cent. BC). PM Be My SERMON hewn, SURES Bas-relief (c. 400-350 BC) depicting Asclepius and daughter Hygeia and symbolic snake curing patients during sleep. In fact, religious medicine has been present in the initial stages and throughout the course of every civilization. As there have always been individuals who would rather go to a priest than a physician for treatment of an illness, so too, have there been physicians from Antiquity to more modern times who relegated their incurable patients in need of miracles into the hands of the gods (Sigerist, p. 44). Greece, certainly, was no exception. Religious medicine was cited in the Homeric poems, and, in fact, it is in Homer’s Iliad, where one finds the origin of perhaps the most enduring of the ancient healing cults, the cult of Asclepius, one of the gods invoked in the ‘Hippocratic Oath.” In the liad (Book Il, line 731), Asclepius is mentioned as a minor chieftain and physician, who, with the help of his sons, Pol- daleirios and Machaon, treated the Greek wounded at Troy. Although the Greek gods had the ability to protect mortals against evil and to treat the sick, it was Apollo who became the god of medicine. Asclepius became important and eventually replaced Apollo as god of medicine when legend made him the son of Apollo. Hesiod’s Theogony, written around 700 BC, contains, perhaps, the first legend of Asclepius: In the Boebian lake, the lake of Phoebus, the beautiful maiden, Coronis, daughter of the Lapithian king, Phlegyas, was bathing her feet when Apollo (Phoebus) saw her and desired her. She became pregnant with the god’s child but her father had promised her to her cousin, Ischys. The day of the wedding came and all the preparations had been made, when the raven, a white bird until then, brought the evil news to Delphi, Apollo’s seat. The god, in his wrath, first punished the messenger of the evil tidings, who then on exhibited the black color of mourning and was feared as the herald of disaster. He then killed Ischys, shooting his darts at him, while his sister, Artemis (Diana), hit Coronis and her innocent compa- nions. But when the god saw the body of his beloved on the funeral pyre, he felt pity for the unborn child, removed him from the mother’s womb, and brought him to the cave of Chiron (demigod and Centaur) on Mount Pelion. There, Asclepius grew up, instructed by Chiron in the treatment of diseases with incantations, herbs, and the knife. He became a famous physician, sought by many from far and wide and became so self-assured that he even resuscitated the dead (Pin- dar later changed this to have Asclepius resuscitate a dead man for money), whereupon Zeus slew him with his thunderbolt (Gordon, p. 437). Hippocratic Oath 7