Title: Hippocratic oaths: medicine and its discontents
Abstract: By highlighting on its cover an aggressively negative phrase from Sir Donald Irvine's book review (Oct 23, p 1479),1 The Lancet confirms that Raymond Tallis' long campaign against negativity and pessimism has a long way to go. Hippocratic Oaths emphasises the dangers to medical professionalism, and thus to patients, of political control over the doctor-patient relationship.