To anyone studying the role of spirituality in Western medicine, the first few lines of the Hippocratic Oath should be of interest: "I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant." The Oath continues to be uniquely respected among practitioners of Western medicine, and the emphasis that the Oath seems to place on spirituality from its onset stimulates inquiry into the nature of spirituality in Hippocratic medicine.The original Oath, as we have it preserved today in Greek, was almost undoubtedly not written by Hippocrates, but the work is traditionally included in the Corpus Hippocratum, a collection of medical writings attributed to Hippocrates of Cos (469-399 BCE), written between the fifth and fourth century, BCE.2Celsus, writing nearly four hundred years later, said that Hippocrates was the first to separate medicine from philosophy.
展开▼
