Produced by David Turner, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Harvard Classics Volume 38
Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
CONTENTS
THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES
THE LAW OF HIPPOCRATES
JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES … AMBROISE PARETRANSLATED BY STEPHEN PAGET
ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALSWILLIAM HARVEY. . . TRANSLATED BY ROBERT WILLIS
THE THREE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS ON VACCINATIONAGAINST SMALLPOX . … .. EDWARD JENNER
THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF PUERPERAL FEVERO. W. HOLMES
ON THE ANTISEPTIC PRINCIPLE OF THE PRACTICE OF SURGERYLORD LISTER
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY OF FERMENTATION
LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY F. FAULKNER AND D. C. ROBB (Revised)
THE GERM THEORY AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO MEDICINE AND
SURGERY (Revised) . … .. LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY H. C. ERNST
ON THE EXTENSION OF THE GERM THEORY TO THE ETIOLOGY
OF CERTAIN COMMON DISEASES (Revised) LOUIS PASTEUR
TRANSLATED BY H. C. ERNST
PREJUDICES WHICH HAVE RETARDED THE PROGRESS OFGEOLOGY. … . … .. SIR CHARLES LYELL
UNIFORMITY IN THE SERIES OF PAST CHANGES IN THEANIMATE AND INANIMATE WORLD SIR CHARLES LYELL
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Hippocrates, the celebrated Greek physician, was a contemporaryof the historian Herodotus. He was born in the island of Cosbetween 470 and 460 B. C., and belonged to the family thatclaimed descent from the mythical AEsculapius, son of Apollo.There was already a long medical tradition in Greece before hisday, and this he is supposed to have inherited chiefly throughhis predecessor Herodicus; and he enlarged his education byextensive travel. He is said, though the evidence isunsatisfactory, to have taken part in the efforts to check thegreat plague which devastated Athens at the beginning of thePeloponnesian war. He died at Larissa between 380 and 360 B. C.
The works attributed to Hippocrates are the earliest extant Greekmedical writings, but very many of them are certainly not his.Some five or six, however, are generally granted to be genuine,and among these is the famous "Oath." This interesting documentshows that in his time physicians were already organized into acorporation or guild, with regulations for the training ofdisciples, and with an esprit de corps and a professional idealwhich, with slight exceptions, can hardly yet be regarded as outof date.
One saying occurring in the words of Hippocrates has achieveduniversal currency, though few who quote it to-day are aware thatit originally referred to the art of the physician. It is thefirst of his "Aphorisms": "Life is short, and the Art long; theoccasion fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult.The physician must not only be prepared to do what is righthimself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, andexternals cooperate."
THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES
I swear by Apollo the physician and AEsculapius, and Health, andAll-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to myability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as myparents, to share my substance with him, and relieve hisnecessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the samefooting as my ow