Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations

Jerry Vale

Whiskey is the most popular of all the remedies
that won’t cure a cold.
Bartlett’s Unfamiliar Quotations(Leonard Louis Levenson)

Paul Valéry –

French writer

The object of psychology is to give us a totally
different idea of the things we know best.
Tel Quel

Marcos Varro st century 

Roman physician

In damp places there grow tiny creatures, too
small for us to see, which make their way into
our bodies through mouth and nose and give
rise to grave illnesses.
De re rustica

Thorsten Veblen –

US sociologist

The outcome of any serious research can only be
to make two questions grow where only one grew
before.
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation

James Venable c.

First ether patient

I commenced inhaling the ether before the
operation was commenced and continued it until
the operation was over. I did not feel the slightest
pain from the operation and could not believe the
tumor was removed until it was shown to me.
Account by first patient who underwent ether anaesthetic
at Massachusetts General, Boston

Venetian proverb

Woollen clothing keeps the skin healthy.

Tobias Venner –

English apothecary

Men of lean habit of body are commonly a long
time healthy, having good appetites and strong
stomachs for digestion.
Via recta ad vitam longam

Queen Victoria –

British monarch

Dr. Snow gave that blessed Chloroform and the
effect was soothing, quieting and delightful
beyond measure.
Journal, describing her labour

Leonardo da Vinci –

Italian artist and scientist

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in
dreams than the imagination when awake?
Arundel MSSBritish Museum (transl. Edward MacCurdy in
The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciVol. , Ch. )

Man and the animals are merely a passage and
channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a

haven for the dead, giving life by the death of

others, a coffer of corruption.

Codice Atlanticoin The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Vol. , Ch. 

The common sense is that which judges the things

given to it by the other senses.

Codice Atlantico

If you are mindful that old age has wisdom for its

food, you will so exert yourself in youth, that your

old age will not lack sustenance.

Codice Atlantico

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its

purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even

so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

Codice Atlantico

Life well spent is long.

Codice Trivulziano(transl. Edward MacCurdy in The

Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciVol. I, Ch. I)

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well

used brings happy death.

Codice Trivulziano

Veins which by the thickening of their funicles in the

old restrict the passage of the blood, and by this lack

of nourishment destroy their life without any fever,

the old coming to fail little by little in slow death.

Dell’ AnatomiaFogli B (transl. Edward MacCurdy in The

Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciVol. , Ch. III)

The act of procreation and the members employed

therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the

beauty of the faces and the adornments of the

actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose

the human species.

Dell’ AnatomiaFogli B (transl. Edward MacCurdy in The

Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciVol. , Ch. III)

All the veins and arteries proceed from the heart;

and the reason is that the maximum thickness

that is found in these veins and arteries is at the

junction that they make with the heart; and the

farther away they are from the heart the thinner

they become and they are divided into more

minute ramifications.

Dell’ AnatomiaVol. , Ch. III

The function of muscle is to pull and not to push

except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.

Dell’ AnatomiaVol. , Ch. III

Those who are enamoured of practice without

science are like a pilot who goes into a ship

without rudder or compass and never has any

certainty where he is going.

Practice should always be based upon a sound

knowledge of theory.

Dell’ AnatomiaVol. II, Ch. 

The black races in Ethiopia are not the product

of the sun; for if black gets black with child in

Scythia, the offspring is black; but if a black gets

a white woman with child the offspring is grey.

Quarderni d’AnatomiaVol. III (transl. Edward MacCurdy

in The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciVol. , Ch. III)

No human investigation can be called true science

without passing through mathematical tests.

Treatise on PaintingCh. (transl. Jean Paul Richter)

 ·    