Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations

(WallPaper) #1

The sound clinician attacks the core of the
problem and avoids being mousetrapped by
tangential data.
The Pharos of Alpha Omega Alpha: ()


Many of those who can teach, can do, and do do.
The Pharos of Alpha Omega Alpha: ()


The proper study of geriatrics begins with pediatrics.
Journal of Pediatrics: ()


Progress in medical science depends chiefly on the
uncommon man, possessed of that rare asset, a
brain so beautifully integrated with the retina,
that when he looks, he perceives.
Journal of Pediatrics: ()


An increasing worship of the instrument for its
own sake sometimes leads to enslavement by it.
Journal of Pediatrics: ()


John Selden –

English historian


’Tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the
excess.
Table Talk


Molly Selvin

Contemporary US historian


Most physicians no longer consider venereal
diseases to be shameful, abhorrent evidence of an
individual’s degraded moral character.
Changing medical and societal attitudes towards sexually
transmitted diseases: A historical overview. In: Sexually
Transmitted diseases. McGraw-Hill ()


Richard Selzer –

US surgeon and author, Connecticut


It is to search for some meaning in the ritual of
surgery, which is at once murderous, painful,
healing and full of love.
Mortal Lessonsp. . Chatto & Windus, London ()


Who can gaze on so much misery and feel no hurt?
Mortal Lessonsp. . Chatto & Windus, London ()


The surgeon knows all the parts of the brain but
he does not know his patient’s dreams.
Mortal Lessonsp. . Chatto & Windus, London ()


A man does not know whose hands will stroke for
him the last bubbles of his life. That alone should
make him kinder to strangers.
Mortal Lessonsp. . Chatto & Windus, London ()


Imagine God as tailor. His shelves are lined with
rolls of skin, each with its subtleties of texture and
hue. Six days a week He cuts lengths with which
to wrap those small piles offlesh and bone into the
clever parcels we call babies.
Mortal Lessonsp. . Chatto & Windus, London ()


Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis –

Austrian-born professor of midwifery in Budapest and
pioneer of asepsis


It is owing to the doctors that there is so high a
mortality in childbed.
Aetiologie, Begriff und Prophylaxis der Kindbettfiebers


I was instantly struck with the close resemblance
of the malady from which Kolletschka died to that
which I had seen countless numbers of women
perish after childbirth.
On the death of his friend the professor of Jurisprudence
after being pricked by a needle during a post-mortem.
Aetiologie, Begriff und Prophylaxis der Kindbettfiebers

Seneca c.BC–AD

Roman writer and statesman
Death is a punishment to some, to some a gift, and
to many a favour.
Hercules Oetaeus
Time heals what reason cannot.
Agamemnon
At the beginning no one tries extreme remedies.
Agamemnon
Nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent
changes of medicine.
Epistulae ad Lucilium
Disease is not of the body but of the place.
Epistulae ad Lucilium
It is not manly to fear to sweat.
Epistulae ad LuciliumXXXI.vii.
A disease also is farther on the road to being cured
when its breaks forth from concealment and
manifests its power.
Epistulae ad LuciliumLVI
Drunkenness is simply voluntary insanity.
Epistulae ad LuciliumLXXXIII
Old age is a disease which we cannot cure.
Epistulae ad LuciliumLXXXIII
It is medicine not scenery, for which a sick man
must go searching.
Epistulae ad LuciliumCIV
Remember that pain has this most excellent
quality: if prolonged it cannot be severe, and if
severe it cannot be prolonged.
Epistulae ad LuciliumXCIV
No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too
much about lengthening it.
Epistulae ad LuciliumIV
Before I became old I tried to live well; now that I
am old, I shall try to die well; but dying well
means dying gladly.
Epistulae ad LuciliumLXI
Not even medicine can master incurable
diseases.
Epistulae ad LuciliumXCIV
The body is not a permanent dwelling, but a sort
of inn which is to be left behind when one
perceives that one is a burden to the host.
Epistulae ad LuciliumCXX
People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his
kindness they still remain in his debt.
Attributed
To desire to be healthy is part of being healthy.
Attributed

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