The asclepiades constituted a special class, and they were oath-bound to preserve the mysteries of the art from the uninitiated. The oath is preserved in the Hippocratic Collection,[67] and is usually called by his name. It begins thus: “I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Æsculapius, and Health, and All-Heal,[68] and all the gods and goddesses that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this oath and this stipulation.” In it occurs this passage: “I will follow that system of regimen[69] which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.” Here is another: “With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my art.” Cutting for the stone is left to those who make a special business of it. What is learned about patients, in the exercise of the art, which should be kept secret is not to be divulged. Mr. Adams well says that it is most honorable to the profession that so ancient a document pertaining to it as this, “instead of displaying narrow-minded and exclusive selfishness, inculcates a generous line of conduct, and enjoins an observance of the rules of propriety and of the laws of domestic morality.”[70] It has been said, in a learned article[71] on ancient medicine, that “the asclepiadæ of Greece were the true originators” of scientific medicine. This claim might be questioned, but it is, doubtless, in the main just. Certainly all physicians were not connected with asclepia; and in later times the asclepiades proper were avoided by the more intelligent and rational. Unfortunately, the records of the practice of the asclepiades have been almost entirely lost. This is to be regretted, and more especially because what is preserved is of a decidedly high order of merit.[72] However, it is probable that at least the _crême_ of the whole has been handed down to us by Hippocrates. It seems certain that in the first “Prorrhetics” and the “Prænotiones Coacae,” which are transmitted to us in the Hippocratic Collection, we have fragments and excerpts from the histories of diseases and cures which were formerly found on the votive tablets of the Coan Temple. From these records Hippocrates drew largely in composing his highly valuable “Book of Prognostics.” In reference to the matter Adams says: “It is as clear as the light of day that Hippocrates composed this work from them.”[73]