Abstract
The Hippocratic Oath is a code of ethics defining correct behaviour by physicians they are required
to commit themselves to before being accepted into the profession. It was the first code of ethics for
any profession. While originating in Ancient Greece, it subsequently evolved, but the current code still
embodies many of the core injunctions of the original code. The most widely accepted current form is
the 2006 The Declaration of Geneva by the World Medical Association to be taken before being
admitted as a member of the medical profession. The most important of its injunctions are: ‘The health
of my patient will be my first consideration’ and ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life’.
The first is a rewording of the injunction from Epidemics, Book I, of the Hippocratic school: ‘Practice
two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.’ This was later
simplified to the most basic precept of the Hippocratic Oath: ‘First, do no harm.’ It is one of the
principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare that, given an existing problem, it may
be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good.
The development of neurotechnology could be subsumed with little modification under the
Geneva formulation of the Hippocratic Oath, extending this precept to a commitment not to damage
people’s psychological health.