The public physicians of ancient Greece, their functions, their nomenclature, even their existence have been the objects of historical debate since sixteenth century. That the Greeks had public physician is now beyond dispute, but the origin and purpose of this medical system in the sources are highly controversial. Diodorus remarks in his Universal History that Charondas had surpassed all previous law-givers — who had only gone so far as to specify that private citizens should be treated by doctors at public expense — by including in his law code for Thurii free school education. Yet nothing else is known of these early law-givers, either where or when they lived or further details of their law codes. On the other hand, Herodotus demonstrates in his account of Democedes, that certain poleis were prepared to pay money to this good physician. In order to understand the character of the payment, modern scholars have payed attention to Aristophanes' play, "The Acharnians". The definite statement of a late scholiast on Acharnians, that doctors who were elected publicly to cure without fee, supports the hypothesis of free health treatment for the citizens of Athene. In this paper I have reexamined the hypothesis through the statements of Xenophon and Plato, with the help of archeological evidences. My point is that the hypothesis is not correct, and Cohn-Haft's doubts on the existence of a system of free medical care in the ancient Greece seems to be justified. I will show that the hire of public physicians was governed by circumstances arising from a comparative scarcity of physicians. In any case, the appointments of public physicians who evidently had some kind of official connection with the poleis are very interesting phenomena regarding the concept of self-policy or autonomy of Greek medicine.