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Show Letters to the editor Doctors' services Editor: Your recent expose of the local medical mafia has long been overdue, and a service long needed in this community. It seems that some members of the medical profession in our community, at the time that they were taking the "HippocraticOath," they were doing so with their fingers crossed, foreswearing no alleigiance to the sick and afflicted of humanity. While the Hippocratic Oath may not be accredited to Hippocrates, the Greek physician, recognized as the father of medicine, it may well represent his own ideals. In abridged form this is administered ad-ministered in many modern universities univer-sities to graduates in medicine as follows: "You do solemnly swear, each man by whatever he holds most sacred, that you will be loyal to the profession of medicine and just and generous to its members; that you will lead your lives and practice your art in uprightness and honor; that unto whatsoever house you shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick to the utmost of your power, your holding yourselves far aloof from . wrong, from corruption, from the tempting of others to vice; that you will exercise your art safely for the cure of your patients and will give no drug, perform no operation, for a criminal purpose, even if solicited, far less suggest it; that whatsoever you shall see or hear of the lives of men which is not fitting to be spoken, you will keep inviolably secret. These things you swear. Let each man bow his head in sign of acquiescence. And now, if you will be true to this, your oath, may prosperity and good repute be ever yours; the opposite, if you shall prove yourselves forsworn. It would seem, that among the professional arts today, there are those who hold inviolate, any oath that may have beea required of them, of that profession. But lest some doctors of medicine feel alone in this respect,' there are many others, in the profession of law, judicial duties, legislative and governmental capacities as well as others, who short-change their oaths of office and-or obligations to their profession or art. Let the new doctors in our community, com-munity, enjoy their profession, and opportunity to serve, insofar as they shall demonstrate their arts and oaths of practice, and let all other artists and artisans in our community do likewise. B.G. Eastman Kanarraville |