One Oath, Two Different Messages

Have you ever read the Hippocratic Oath? (It’s a subject not too unfamiliar to the pages of First Things ). But if you’ve read it: Which one? While I was sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, I noticed the Oath on the wall and decided to give it a quick read.

It turns out that the version I was reading was the original one written by Hippocrates himself around the year 400 b.c. Most medical schools today, however, use a “modern” version written in 1964 by a doctor named Louis Lasagna. Interestingly, Dr. Lasagna took a few creative liberties in penning the new version, especially in the matters of life and death:

Original Version:

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.

Modern Version:

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. Above all, I must not play at God.