Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations

Pam Ayres –

English poet and humorist
Medicinal discovery,
It moves in mighty leaps,
It leapt straight past the common cold
And gave it us for keeps.
Oh no! I got a cold()

Sir Francis Bacon –

English philosopher and politician

Medical men do not know the drugs they use, nor
their prices.
De Erroribus Medicorum

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little
infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
Essays‘Of Death’

Men fear Death, as children fear to go in the dark;
and as that natural fear in children is increased
with tales, so is the other.
Essays

Cure the disease and kill the patient.
Essays‘Of Friendship’

Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he
that will not apply new remedies, must expect new
evils.
Essays‘Of Innovations’

The remedy is worse than the disease.
Essays‘Of Seditions and Troubles’

A man that is young in years may be old in hours,
if he has lost no time.
Essays‘Of Youth and Age’

The men of experiment are like the ant; they only
collect and use: the reasoners resemble spiders,
who make cobwebs out of their own substance.
But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its
material from the flowers of the garden and of the
field, but transforms and digests it by a power of
its own.
Novum Organum‘Aphorisms’

Brutes by their natural instinct have produced
many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and
the conclusions of reason have given birth to few
or none.
Novum OrganumLXXIII

They are the best physicians, who being great in
learning most incline to the traditions of
experience, or being distinguished in practice do
not reflect the methods and generalities of art.
The Advancement of LearningBk IV, Ch. II

Deformed persons commonly take revenge on
nature.
The Advancement of LearningBk VI, Ch. 

Walter Bagehot –

English economist and journalist

Writers, like teeth, are divided into, incisors and
grinders.
Literary Studies‘The First Edinburgh Reviewers’

Giorgio Baglivi –

Professor of Anatomy at Sapienza, Papal University, Rome

Let the young know they will never find a more

interesting, more instructive book than the patient

himself.

Attributed

The doctor is the servant and the interpreter of

nature. Whatever he thinks or does, if he follows

not in nature’s footsteps he will never be able to

control her.

Introduction to De Praxi Medica()

The origin and the causes of disease are far too

recondite for the human mind to unravel them.

Introduction to De Praxi Medica

The two fulcra of medicine are reason and

observation. Observation is the clue to guide the

physician in his thinking.

Introduction to De Praxi Medica

Mary Baines –

Palliative care physician, London, UK

One cannot help a man to come to accept his

impending death if he remains in severe pain, one

cannot give spiritual counsel to a woman who is

vomiting, or help a wife and children say their

goodbyes to a father who is so drugged that he

cannot respond.

Quoted in Clinical Pharmacologyby D. R. Lawrence,

P. N. Bennett, and M. J. Brown. Churchchill Livingstone,

Edinburgh ()

Jacob Balde c.

German preacher

What difference is there between a smoker and a

suicide, except that the one takes longer to kill

himself than the other.

Attributed

Honoré de Balzac –

French novelist

The glory of surgeons is like that of actors, who

exist only in their lifetime and whose talent is no

longer appreciable once they have disappeared.

The Atheist’s Mass

Physically, a man is a man for a much longer time

than a woman is a woman.

The Physiology of Marriage

No man should marry until he has studied

anatomy and dissected at least one woman.

The Physiology of MarriageMeditation V, Aphorism 

Six weeks with a fever is an eternity.

Attributed

Alvan L. Barach –?

US physician, New York

An alcoholic has been lightly defined as a man

who drinks more than his own doctor.

Journal of the American Medical Association:()

 ·  .  