ABSTRACT
In the cities of ancient Greece, as well as later in Rome, the doctor's responsibility was already a controversial subject. The practice of healing was not subject to any official regulation: no protection of good physicians, no punishment of malpractice. While physicians often lead an itinerant life, cities endeavoured to secure the presence of a good one by appointing him town or public physician on the basis of a one-year contract. This did not mean, however, a "health service" free of charge for patients. The variety of healing persons including midwives and medicals slaves is reviewed. Some short texts which were added in later times to the "Works of Hippocrates" ("Physician", "Precepts", "Decorum") provide us with some information on a physician's daily life (see also H.M. Koelbing, The Hippocratic physician at his patient's bedside, in Practitioner 224, 1980, 551-554). From Hippocrates ("Prognostic") to the hellenistic period ("Decorum"), we note an important change as to the revelation of a bad prognosis: Hippocrates advocates the blunt information of the patient when there is no hope for him; but his follower in a later century takes into consideration the patient's psychology. He hides the cruel truth from him while informing openly his relatives and near friends. This is the first time in history we come across the principle of the doctor's double truth, strongly, advocated e.g. by Thomas Percival in his "Medical Ethics" (1803), but much disputed today.
