[1][2] Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare are taught in school and is a fundamental principle throughout the world.
Perhaps the closest approximation in the Hippocratic Corpus is in Epidemics:[5] "The physician must ... have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm" (book I, sect.
Hooker attributed it to the Parisian pathologist and clinician Auguste François Chomel (1788–1858), the successor of Laennec in the chair of medical pathology, and the preceptor of Pierre Louis.
[9] Smith's article also reviews the various uses of the now popular aphorism, its limitations as a moral injunction, and its increasingly frequent use in a variety of contexts.
That it was in common use by the 20th century is apparent from later mentions, such as by the prominent obstetrician J. Whitridge Williams in 1911, as well as detailed discussion of its use in a popular book authored by Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1930.