The medical ethics in the Code of Hammurabi in comparison with the Hippocratic Oath

Hammurabi was the most important Babylonian sovereign (1792 1750 BC) and became known for his collection of laws, engraved in a rockshaft, which has come down to the present - the most ancient code of the human history. Despite the strict punishments, the Code imposes humanism when practicing the medical profession, as is in the fundaments of the Hippocratic Oath thirteen centuries later - much less thannever do harm to anyonemuch greater than. Hippocrates (460-377? BC) does not consider the medical ethics as a punishment, imposed by the authority, but as a moral rule of every doctor, which is taught, like self-control. The imposed punishment of Hammurabi's Code prevented every healer to intervene if he was not certain about his success; it discouraged every idea of experimentalism and made discriminations between lords and slaves.