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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 847
AUTHOR: Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
QUOTATION: As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm. The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must co-operate with the physician in combating the disease.
ATTRIBUTION: HIPPOCRATES, Epidemics, book 1, section 11.—Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones, vol. 1, p. 165 (1923).

“To do no harm” is echoed in two places in the Hippocratic Oath, as given in this translation: “I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing” and “In whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm” (pp. 299, 301).
SUBJECTS: Harm