Written in ancient Greece around 400 BC (scholars date it to the late 5th or the 4th century BC). What the oath promises, set beside the medicine of today.

1. “As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm.”
   Today: The saying “First, do no harm” (in Latin, Primum non nocere), taught to medical and pharmacology students.
2. Respect your teachers and pass the knowledge on. Honour the people who trained you, and teach the next generation.
   Today: Mentoring and teaching in medical schools, and in orthomolecular and natural medicine.
3. Treat the sick with diet and way of living first. Use regimen (food, exercise, sleep, daily habits) to help patients.
   Today: Nutrition and lifestyle medicine is much less profitable and less often recommended than patented medicine.
4. Protect patients from harm and injustice.
   Today: Patient safety, avoiding needless tests and drugs, and treating every patient fairly.
5. Never give a deadly drug, even when asked.
   Today: The oath’s line is cited in the debate over assisted dying, which some countries now permit.
6. No abortion pessary.
   Today: The oath’s line is cited in the abortion debate; laws differ widely from country to country.
7. Live and practise with integrity. Keep your own life and your work clean and honest.
   Today: Professional ethics and personal conduct.
8. Know your limits and refer what you aren’t trained for. The oath says leave stone-cutting surgery to the specialists.
   Today: Referral to a specialist.
9. Enter homes only to help the sick. No wrongdoing and no sexual contact with patients, whether free or slave.
   Today: Professional boundaries, and the ban on sexual relationships with patients.
10. Keep what you see and hear private. This covers anything learned in treatment, and even outside it.
    Today: Medical confidentiality and patient privacy (in the United States, the HIPAA law).

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