Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pantagruelism: A Rabelaisian inspiration for Understanding Poisoning, Euthanasia and Abortion in The Hippocratic Oath and in Contemporary Clinical Practice

  • Published:
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Contrary to the common view, this paper suggests that the Hippocratic oath does not directly refer to the controversial subjects of euthanasia and abortion. We interpret the oath in the context of establishing trust in medicine through departure from Pantagruelism. Pantagruelism is coined after Rabelais' classic novel Gargantua and Pantagruel. His satire about a wonder herb, Pantagruelion, is actually a sophisticated model of anti-medicine in which absence of independent moral values and of properly conducted research fashion a flagrant over-medicalization of human problems. Ultimately this undermines the therapeutic core of medicine itself. We contend that PAS is a case of such over-medicalization and that its institution creates medicophobia. This article does not express an opinion about euthanasia in general. Rather, we claim that physicians should learn from the oath and from Rabelais that they should keep their practice to medical care and not to exploit their expertise and social privileges for the sake of ulterior motives, even when their patients desire those goals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  1. Aristotle. Politics.

  2. Amundsen DW. The liability of the physician in Classical Greek legal theory and practice. J Hist Med Allied Sci 1977; 32: 172–203.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Amundsen DW. Medicine Society and Faith in The Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Battin MB. The Death Debate, Ethical Issues in Suicide. New York: Prentice Hill, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. Principles of Biomedical Ethics (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  6. The Bible, King James' Version.

  7. Brandt AM. Racism and research: The case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Hastings Center Report 1978; 8(6): 21–29.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Bronowski J. “The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination” and “Magic Science and Civilization”. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Callahan D. When self-determination runs amok. Hastings Center Report 1992; 22(2): 52–55.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Camporesi P. The Anatomy of the Senses: Natural Symbols in Medieval and Early Modern Italy. Oxford: Polity Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Camporesi P. Juice of Life, The Symbolic and Magic Significance of Blood. New York: Continuum, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Cantarella E. Pandora's Daughters, The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Carrick P. Medical Ethics in Antiquity. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985, Chapter 7.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Daube D. The linguistics of suicide. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1972; 1: 387–437.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Donnelly J. Suicide, Right or Wrong. New York: Prometheus, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Dworkin R, Nagel T, Nozick R, Rawls J, Scanlon T, Jarvis-Thomson J. Assisted suicide, the philosophers' brief. The New York Review of Books 1997; 44(5): 41–47.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Edelstein L. Ancient Medicine, Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Edgar II. Shakespeare, Medicine and Psychiatry. New York: Philosophical Library, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Flanagan O. Varieties of Moral Personality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  20. French RK. Dissection and Vivisection in The European Renaissance. Aldershot (UK): Ashgate, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Frey EF. The influence of rabelais on medicine and its reform. Clio Medica 1980; 15: 25–34.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Garcia JLA. Double effect. In: Reich WT, ed. Encyclopedia of Bioethics. 2nd ed. New York: MacMillan, 1995: 636–641.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Gorman MJ. Abortion and The Early Church. Swiners Grove (IL): InetrVarsity, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Griffin M. Roman suicide. In: Kulford KWM, Gillet GR, Martin Soskice J, eds. Medicine and Moral Reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Hamilton JS. Scribonius Largus on the medical profession. Bull Hist Med 1986; 60: 209–216.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Higginson IJ. Evidence based palliative care: there is some evidence and there needs to be more. BMJ 1999; 319: 462–463.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Ireland RW. Chaucer's toxicology. The Chaucer Review 1994; 29(1): 74–92.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Jonsen AR. A Short History of Medical Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Jouanna J. Hippocratres. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Kazhdan A. The image of the medical doctor in the Byzantine literature of the tenth and twelfth centuries. In: Scarborough J, ed. Symposium on Byzantine Medicine. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985: 43–51.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Keefer MH. Agrippa's dilemma, hermetic rebirth and the ambivalence of de vanitate and de occulta philosophia. Renaissance Quarterly 1988; 41: 614–653.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Keeley D. Rigorous assessment of palliative care revisited, wisdom and compassion are needed when evidence is lacking. BMJ 1999; 319: 1447–1448.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Kennedy A, Derr MK. Feminism and abortion. History Today 1999; 49: 35–35.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Kennedy DM. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Kudlien F. Medical ethics and popular ethics in Greece and Rome. Clio Medica 1970; 5: 91–121.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Lindemann M. Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, ch. 7.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Lloyd GER et al. (eds). Hippocratic Writings. New York: Harmondsworth, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Marlow. The Jew of Malta.

  39. Meek WJ. The gentle art of poisoning. Journal of The American Medical Association 1955; 158: 335–339.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Memec J. Witchcraft and Medicine. Bethesda (MD): National Institute of Health, 1974 (DHEW publication No. (NIH) 74-636).

    Google Scholar 

  41. Moliere. The Imaginary Invalid.

  42. Monois G. History of suicide, voluntary death in western culture. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Moody HR. Ethics in an Aging Society. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Nauert CG. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought. Urbana (Il): University of Illinois Press, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Nittis S. The hippocratic oath in reference to lithotomy. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 1939; 7: 719–729.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Nock AD. Conversion, The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Oribasius (Reader I. editor). Collectionum Medicarum Reliquiae. Amsterdam: Verlag Adolf Hakkert, 1964; Book VIII, viii–ix (volume I, p. 261).

    Google Scholar 

  48. Orr RD, Pang N, Pellegrino E. Use of the hippocratic oath, a review of the twentieth century practice and a content analysis of oaths administered in medical schools in the US and Canada in 1993. The Journal of Clinical Ethics 1997; 8: 377–388.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Oderberg DS. Moral Theory, a Non-Consequentialist Approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Padel R. Whom Gods Destroy, Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Parsons T. The Social System. Glencoe (IL), 1951.

  52. Pellegrino ED and Pellegrino AA. Humanism and ethics in Roman medicine: Translation and commentary on a text by Scribonius Largus. Literature and Medicine 1988; 7: 22–38.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Pines S. The Oath of Asaf The Physician and Yohanan ben Zabda. Jerusalem: The Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Plato. Republic.

  55. Pliny. Natural History. Volume 7, Books 24–27. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1956, book 25, sections XXIII–XXV.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Preston Blier S. African Vodun: Art, Psychology and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Rabelais F. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Book III chapters 50–51.

  58. Redlich FC. Editorial reflections on the concept of health and disease. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 1976; 1, 269–280.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Riddle JM. Contraception and Abortion from The Ancient World to The Renaissance. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Ruderman DB. Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  61. Scott GR. The History of Torture Throughout The Ages. London: T. Werner, 1940.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Scribonius Largus Corpus Medicarum Graecorum in Compositiones (Sconodia S. ed.). Leipzig: Taubner Vlg, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Shakespeare. Timon of Athens.

  64. Shatzmiller J. Jews, Medicine and Medieval Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Shorter E. A History of Women's Bodies. New York: Basic Books, 1982, Ch. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Sigerist H. A History of Medicine, volume I. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Singer C. An early parallel to the hipocratic oath. Genesrus 1951; 8: 177–180.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Stannard J. Hippocratic pharmacology. Bulletin of The History of Medicine 1961; 35: 497–518.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Stevenson LG. The Meaning of Poison. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1959.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Talmud. Babylonian Talmud. London: Soncino Press, 1935.

    Google Scholar 

  71. Tauber AI. Confessions of a Medicine Man, An Essay in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  72. Temkin O. The Double Face of Janus and Other Essays in the History of Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Temkin O. Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Thomas K. Religion and The Decline of Magic. New York: Scribners, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Tolstoy L. Confessions. New York: Norton, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Trachtenberg J. The Devil and The Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Antisemitism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943, chapters 6–7.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Van den Berg JH. Medical Power and Medical Ethics. New York: Norton, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Von Staden H. Herophilus, The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Warner JH. The fall and the rise of professional mystery, epistemology, authority and the emergence of laboratory medicine in nineteenth century America. In: Cunningham A, Williams P, eds. The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Weinfeld M. Instructions for temple visitors in the bible and ancient Egypt. Scripta Hierosol 1982; 28: 224–250.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Weithman PJ. Of assisted suicide and “the philosophers' brief”. Ethics 1999; 109: 548–578.

    Google Scholar 

  82. White C. Lethal injection is medicalizing execution. BMJ 1998; 316: 328.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Zohar, Leghorn, 1858 (numerous reprint editions).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Medicine C (``Pnimmit Gimmel''), chilov Hospital Sourasky, Tel Aviv Medical Center, 6 Weitzmann Street, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Y. Michael Barilan & Moshe Weintraub

Authors
  1. Y. Michael Barilan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Moshe Weintraub
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Barilan, Y.M., Weintraub, M. Pantagruelism: A Rabelaisian inspiration for Understanding Poisoning, Euthanasia and Abortion in The Hippocratic Oath and in Contemporary Clinical Practice. Theor Med Bioeth 22, 269–286 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011478729982

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011478729982

Search

Navigation