October 1, 2025

By Jim Towey

Ever heard of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician considered the father of medicine? Or the Hippocratic Oath, the formulation of medical ethics for physicians that bears his name?

Born within the same century as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Hippocrates was the fifth century B.C. great who bequeathed a substantial body of writings and insights that have stood the test of time.  With this significant of a historical footprint, you would think Hippocrates could rest easy in his Larissa, Greece tomb, right?

Well, for a moment, put yourself in his burial shroud. How would you feel if you discovered that the physicians and medical schools of the modern era have either hijacked your words and twisted them, or utterly disregarded them?

Start with his epic admonition, “primum non nocere,” translated, “First, do no harm.” This warning was not in the original formulation of the Oath but taken from another of Hippocrates’ works.  Tradition long ago wove the two together. “First, do no harm” is about as well-known a phrase as any governing the practice of medicine.

To “do no harm” to a patient seems pretty unequivocal. But to hammer home the point, Hippocrates explained his thinking further. After invoking the gods and goddesses to witness to what he foreswore, he cautioned that “no man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; either will I counsel any man to do so.”  That is as clear a prohibition against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as you can get. He continued, “Moreover, I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child.”

Wanting it both ways

Well, if Hippocrates had hopped into a time machine back then and emerged in America in the 1960s, my guess is he would not have been invited to many toga parties. Instead, he would have found his beliefs at odds with multitudes of members within the profession he established.  His 20^th century peers seemed to want it both ways – to adhere to the time-honored Hippocratic Oath without offending their colleagues or patients. The choice before them and those who educate other aspiring doctors was clear: change the unambiguous language of the ancient Oath or jettison it entirely in favor of a different code.

Well, they chose both.

First, in 1964, Dr. Louis Lasagna, the Academic Dean at Tufts University School of Medicine, unilaterally cooked up the Hippocratic Oath into a half-baked version that is accepted in many medical schools today. Gone is the language prohibiting physician involvement in euthanasia, assisted suicide, and abortion. Instead, Dr. Lasagna gave us the following cheesy language: “Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.” Thanks, Dr. Lasagna, for serving a word salad with your entree.

Defiling the record

The gravelly sound you hear is Hippocrates unceasingly rolling over in his tomb. Had he been alive to witness this radical alteration of his words and intent, he might have asked Plato if there was any hemlock left in Socrates’ bowl.

Anyone who promotes this revised version of the Oath is purposefully defiling the historical record, particularly since it still bears the Greek master’s name. Better to simply write a different code of ethics rather than ascribe it to antiquity.

And that’s what some did. The World Medical Association’s Physician’s Pledge, initially drafted after World War II and then modified six times, most recently in 2017, reads, in part, as follows:

“I will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patient; I will maintain the utmost respect for life. I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing, or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient…I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties even under threat.”

What gobbledygook! Was Dr. Lasagna back in the kitchen? I thought he got chopped!  And of course, no mention is made of PAS, or the e- or a-words.

Throughout the Covid pandemic, and right up to the recent pronouncements by U.S.  Department of Health and Human Services officials, there have been claims that science and medicine are being politicized. Well, Hippocrates feels their pain. He may be one of the oldest victims of such abuse.

And he’d be saddened to learn that today some physicians are at the forefront of the movement to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the West.

So, to those folks I make this humble request: If you are assisting in a patient’s suicide, or actually euthanizing that individual, please don’t pretend to honor the ancient ethical norms that have governed medicine for centuries.

That would be, well, hypocritical.

(The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aging with Dignity and/or its Board of Directors.)