Ethics in siddha medical literature

Ethics in Siddha medical literature:

In Siddha medical literature, ethics of the physician –patient relationship are available scattered, rather than all together in a single place.

Siddhar Agasthiyar in the classical Siddha medical text ‘Agasthiyar paripooranam 400” mentions little code of medical ethics, as follows,

• ‘Virtue lies in treating a poor, and not in treating a king’. (Verse 370).

[The verse has earmarks of the World Medical Association Declaration of Geneva (amended by the 68th WMA General Assembly, Chicago, October 2017), ‘I will not permit consideration of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affection, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene my duty and my patient’]

• ‘Treat others the same way you want them to treat you’ (Verse 371)

[A most inclusive line captures all the codes of medical ethics]

In these two verses, Agasthiyar repeatedly stresses, ‘These virtues will make the physician mastery in her / his profession’.

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