En esta oportunidad publicaremos el artículo del Dr. Gonzalo Herránz del Departamento de Humanidades Biomédicas, publicado anteriormente en la Revista Medicina y Morale Vol 60 -pp 363-382 (2010).
El tema demás está decirlo, es de un interés y actualidad necesarias. Será publicado en este sitio en dos
partes, la primera en este mes, y la segunda en septiembre de este año en curso.
Dr. Gonzalo. Herránz
Departamento de Humanidades Biomédicas, Universidad de Navarra
La deontología médica desde la tradición hipocrática al Cristianismo *
SUMMARY
Medical Deontology: From the Hippocratic Tradition to Christianity
The basic aim of this article is to compare two versions of the Hippocratic Oath: the famous pagan one and the almost unknown “Oath according to Hippocrates in so far as a Christian may swear it”.
The attitude of early Christians toward medicine was guided by their lively remembrance of Jesus, who, as healer and comforter, never denied his help to the sick, not only Jews, but also Samaritans or Pagans. Early Christian physicians, in consequence, placed patients without dis-crimination in a preferential position, and so they were able to develop a specific synthesis of professional prowess, brotherly love and a redemptive sense of suffering. They responded to human disease not with exorcisms or magic, but with medicine and with a surprisingly “mod-ern” medical ethics.
The Christian version of the Oath introduces, despite its literal acceptance of many tenets of the Pagan Oath, some revolutionary novelties. The substitution of the swearing by the pagan deities for the invocation to God the Father and the declaration “I lie not” places the new formula in a perspective of transcendence and eternity. The old covenant between master and disciple with its added duties of financial help and practice dependence is changed to an open recognition of mutual respect between teacher and student. In the new circumstances, to be possessed by a strong professional calling becomes the only requirement for access to the medical art’s learning. Now loyalty to the patient takes precedence over submissiveness to the master: medical corporativism is banished. The Christian version omits also the “surgery clause”, so the old barriers to the equal dignity of all medical specialties are removed.
In view of these and other values of the Christian Oath, the author regrets the almost universal ignorance surrounding this important document, and the scarcity of studies devoted to its history and contents. All the same, the comparison of both versions, Pagan and Christian, of the Oath helps to understand the impressive and permanent impact that Christian physicians of the Antiquity brought about to the ethics of medicine.
Key words
Early Christian Medicine, Christian Hippocratic Oath, History of Medical Ethics

1. Introducción
En esta intervención trataré de ofrecer algunos datos y reflexiones sobre la transición que acaeció en los primeros siglos de nuestra era, cuando los médicos cristianos fueron operando la conversión al cristianismo de la medicina y su deontología. Read more »