The Hippocratic Oath

Edition

Greek text of the Oath in Émile Littré, Œuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, tome IV (Paris, J.-B. Baillière, 1844), pp. 628, 630 and 632, from the scan of the University of Toronto copy on the Internet Archive. The text of the Greek Wikisource (el.wikisource.org, page “Ιπποκράτειος όρκος”), which follows this edition, served as a base and was checked letter by letter against the scan: Littré’s diaeresis is restored in χρηΐζοντι, χρηΐζωσι and θεραπηΐης, and his raised dots (·) after τήνδε, τοιήνδε and χρόνον, where Wikisource has none or full stops. Littré’s heading ΟΡΚΟΣ is the title of the poster; his superscript note numbers and critical notes, and his French translation on the facing pages, are left out; words hyphenated at line ends are joined. The Oath is one paragraph, as printed.

Rights

An ancient Greek text, which Littré assigns to the age of Hippocrates (“l’âge hippocratique”, tome IV, p. 611); he dates the birth of Hippocrates to 460 BC (tome I, 1839, p. 34). The edition used was published in 1844, before 1931, and its editor, Émile Littré, died in 1881, before 1956: public domain in France and in the United States.

The Internet Archive marks the scan NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT. The Greek Wikisource, whose text was checked against it, states in its footer: “Όλα τα κείμενα είναι διαθέσιμα υπό την Άδεια Creative Commons Αναφορά Δημιουργού-Παρόμοια Διανομή 4.0· μπορεί να ισχύουν πρόσθετοι όροι.” A letter-for-letter transcription of a public domain text adds no protected work.