John Wesley –
Evangelist and founder of Methodism
In former times people treated themselves, but the
physicians then concocted complicated theories to
confuse ordinary people.
Primitive Physic: Or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing
Most DiseasesLondon ()
Hugh Wheeler –
US writer
To lose a lover or even a husband or two during
the course of one’s life can be vexing. But to lose
one’s teeth is a catastrophe.
A Little Night Music
James McNeil Whistler –
US painter and wit
The explanation is quite simple. I wished to be
near my mother.
Explaining why he had been born in a small
unfashionable Massachusetts town and not
fashionable New York or London.
E. B.White –
US journalist and humorist
The imaginary complaints of indestructible old
ladies.
Harper’s MagazineNovember ()
In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of
the body he would hesitate to turn over to the
proper authorities.
The Second Tree from the Corner‘A Weekend with the Angels’
Raymond Whitehead –
British pathologist
Medicine is not a field in which sheep may safely
graze.
British Medical Journal: ()
Katherine Whitehorn –
British journalist
A food is not necessarily essential just because
your child hates it.
How to Survive Children
Stop people dying of the illnesses they die of now,
and they will die of something else later, and the
slower and the costlier.
ObserverFebruary ()
Arthur Whitfield –
English Professor of Dermatology, King’s College, London
Always examine your cases thoroughly.
Re-examine them. Re-examine your own
deductions.
Dictionary of Medical Eponyms(nd edn), Firkin and
Whitworth. The Parthenon, Lancashire, UK ()
John Greenleaf Whittier –
US Quaker poet and abolitionistIt is the special vocation of the doctor to grow
familiar with suffering.
Motto on the seal of the New Jersey CollegeGeorge F. I.Widal –
Professor of medicine, Paris
I want to get a job where I can learn something of
general medicine; the neurologists just talk and do
nothing.
Personal reply to Clovis Vincent, famous neurosurgeonSamuel Wilberforce –
British churchman
I would like to ask the gentleman...whether the
ape from which he is descended was on his
grandmother’s or his grandfather’s side of the
family.
British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford,
June ()Aaron Wildavsky
Contemporary US health economist
The marginal value of one or one billion-dollars
spent on medical care will be close to zero in
improving health.
Doing Better and Feeling Worse, The Political Pathology of
Health Policyp. . DaedulusWinter ()Oscar Wilde –
Irish writer and wit
Illness is hardly a thing to be encouraged in
others. Health is the primary duty of life.
The Importance of Being EarnestAct
One can survive everything nowadays, except
death.
A Woman of No ImportanceI
Ah well, I suppose I shall have to die beyond my
means.
Attributed
Heredity is the last of the fates, and the most
terrible.
AttributedSir William Wilde –
ENT surgeon and father of Oscar
There are two kinds of deafness. One is due to wax
and is curable; the other is not due to wax and is
not curable.
AttributedThornton Niven Wilder –?
US author and playwright
Doctors are mostly impostors. The older a doctor is
and the more venerated he is, the more he must
pretend to know everything. Of course, they grow
worse with time. Always look for a doctor who is
hated by the best doctors, Always seek out a bright
young doctor before he comes down with nonsense. ·