History of evolution of the concept of medical ethics
Majumdar, S.K.
Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of Medicine 33(1): 17-31
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0304-9558 PMID: 17153793 Document Number: 564538
"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future and time future contained in time past".--Thomas Steams Eliot (1888-1965), Noble Literature Laureate, 1948. History and evolution of the concept of Medical Ethics is the classical example of this poetic expression. Virtually, every human society has some forces of myth to explain the origin of morality. Indian ethics was philosophical from its very birth. In the Vedas (1500 B.C.), ethics was an integral aspect of philosophical and religious speculation about the nature of reality. The Vedas says how people ought to live and is the oldest philosophical literature in the world. It was the first account of philosophical ethics in human history. The old Testament of (c. 200 B.C.) the Hebrew Bible (Greek--ta biblia--"the books") gives account of God giving the Ten Commandments--the oral and written Law engraved on tablets of Stone to Moses around 13th century B.C. on Mount Sinai (Arabic--Gebel Musa) the Mountain near the tip of the Sinai Peninsula in West Asia.