The ancient Athenians believed their city was founded by a Greek goddess, Athena, who sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus as a wise and beautiful goddess, armored to defend her city and its citizens. Bioethicists share a similar origin story, believing that their field was founded in a similar fashion, emerging fully formed from the minds of Daniel Callahan, Willard Gaylin, and André Hellegers, wise, good, and armed to defend the rights of patients and research subjects. Since, in both origin tales, their subjects emerged fully formed, neither Athenians nor bioethicists have any reason to probe any prior history. In 1988, I was lunching with two historians of medicine, Dorothy and Roy Porter, when I happened to mention the similarity between Athenians’ and bioethicists’ origin stories. My historian friends immediately suggested that we challenge bioethicists’ origin “myth” by bringing historians and bioethicists together to explore precursors to bioethics.