Introduction
The word “ethics” finds its root in an ancient Greek word – êthos (ἦθος), which means character, moral nature, habit or custom. It has to also do with aesthetics or beauty – again relating to some purely human values. Ethics thus synthesizes, recommends, defends and sometimes re-defines the right moral conduct from the wrong one.
In last hundred years or so, medical, biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences have seen unprecedented advancement. And obviously this advancement was possible because of intense research and development activities. We would limit our focus in this paper to the ethics of clinical research in the aforesaid domains of knowledge.
It is kind of strange that the history of research involving human patients in ancient and mediaeval times of medicine and pharmaceuticals is relatively straightforward and mostly ethical. It is the stuff that has been done in the name of clinical research between World War I and late 1970s that is very bleak and shameful.
Earliest Mentions of Ethics in Ayurvedic
Literature
Ayurveda (Charaka and Sushruta), among the ancient treatise, mentions the ethical principles of a medical or surgical practitioner which can be extended to the research in vogue at that time.1,2