Terry Lynn Thomas, age 12, of Phoenix, Ariz., for her question:

Who started the Hippocratic oath?

An oath is a sworn promise and an oath dedicated men have taken proudly through 2,000 years is likely to be a good one. The Hippocratic oath was started by a doctor of ancient Greece who was also a teacher of doctors. Hippocrates lived from x+60 to 377 B.C. In his nob1e oath, he expressed some of his sound ideas of medicine and stated the ideals of a doctor of medicine and his great responsibilities to his fellow men.

Before hippocrates, many peop1e regarded sickness as punishment from the gods and treated it with spells and sacrifices. Hippocrates knew that sickness has natural causes that may be cured by medicine. The famous oath he wrote for his students is a lofty one to live up to, even for the modern doctors of medicine who still take it.