August Bier –
German professor of surgery
A smart mother makes often a better diagnosis
than a poor doctor.
Attributed
Medical scientists are nice people, but you should
not let them treat you.
Attributed
Medicine is like a woman who changes with the
fashions.
Attributed
In America there exist professional anaesthetists.
This specialty is being praised in Germany.
I cannot think of anything more dull.
Attributed
Ambrose Bierce –
US writer and journalist
ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the
temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
The Devil’s Dictionary
DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal
into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.
The Devil’s Dictionary
GOUT, n. A physician’s name for the rheumatism
of a rich patient.
The Devil’s Dictionary
GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to
await the coming of the medical student.
The Devil’s Dictionary
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his
delusion is called a philosopher.
Epigrams
Jacob Bigelow –
US physician, Harvard
A far more just definition would be that medicine
is the art of understanding diseases, and of curing
or relieving them when possible.
Nature in DiseaseCh.
When we know that a case is self-limited or
incurable, we are to consider how far it is in our
power to palliate or diminish sufferings which we
are not competent to remove.
Nature in DiseaseCh.
He is a great physician who, above other men,
understands diagnosis.
Nature in DiseaseCh.
Hermann M. Biggs –
Professor of Medicine, New York
The human body is the only machine for which
there are no spare parts.
Radio Talk (quoted in Doctor’s Legacy)
John Shaw Billings –
British reformer
You cannot legislate a new layer of cortical gray
matter into, or a cirrhosed liver out of, a man.
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:()
The education of the doctor which goes on after
he has his degree, is, after all, the most important
part of his education.
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: ()It has been considered from the point of view of
the hygienist, the physician, the architect, the
taxpayer, the superintendents, and the
nurse... but I do not remember to have seen one
from the point of view of the patient.
Public Health Reports: (–)The public is not always sagacious, but in the long
run, it does somehow contrive to find out who are
the skilled lawyers and doctors.
Public Health Reports: (–)Theodor Billroth –
Prussian-born Professor of Surgery, ViennaIt is quite correct to distinguish between medical
science and the physician’s art.
The Medical Sciences in the German UniversitiesPt , ‘The
Early Universities’Can there be a better preparatory school for the
physician than the study of the natural sciences?
I think not!
The Medical Sciences in the German Universities
Pt II, Ch. It is a most gratifying sign of the rapid progress of
our time that our best text-books become
antiquated so quickly.
The Medical Sciences in the German UniversitiesPt IIThe physician can do all he has to do with speed
and precision, but he must never appear to be in a
hurry, and never absent-minded.
The Medical Sciences in the German UniversitiesPt IIIThe principal method and goal of investigations is
recognition of truth, even though the truth may
be in conflict with our social, ethical and political
circumstances.
The Medical Sciences in the German UniversitiesSolitary, meditative observation is the first step in
the poetry of research, in the formation of
scientific fantasies, the reality of which we then
test with the tools of logic, mathematics, physics
and chemistry.
The Medical Sciences in the German UniversitiesWe are entitled to operate when there are
reasonable chances of success. To use the
knife when these chances are lacking is to
prostitute the splendid art of surgery, and to
render it suspect among the laity and among
one’s colleagues.
Quoted in The Great Doctors—A Biographical History of
Medicinep. , Henry E. Sigerist. Dover Publications, New
York () (original W.W. Norton & Co. Ltd, )Statistics are like women; mirrors of purest
virtue and truth, or like whores to use as one
pleases.
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