Robert Marcus Gunn –
Scottish-born ophthalmologist, Moorfield’s Hospital,
London
In my experience it is most exceptional to see an
old case of albuminuric retinitis; this latter
affection seems to occur at a late stage of the
general disease, so that death supervenes before
the retinal changes have existed for very long.
Dictionary of Medical Eponyms, (nd edn), p..Firkin and
Whitworth, The Parthenon. Carnforth, Lancs ().
Thomas Guthrie –
Scottish social reformer
If you want to keep a dead man, put him in whisky;
if you want to kill a live man put whisky in him.
Attributed
Ernst Haeckel –
German professor of zoology
The cell never acts; it reacts.
Generelle Morphologie
Heinrich Haeser –
Medicine is as old as the human race, as old as the
necessity for the removal of disease.
Lehbruch der Geschichte der Medizin Erste Periode
Christian Friedrich Samuel
Hahnemann –
German physician and founder of homeopathy
As in a disease where no manifest or exciting
cause presents itself for removal, we can perceive
nothing but the symptoms then must these
symptoms alone guide the physician in the choice
of a fit remedy to combat the disease.
Organon of Homeopathic Medicine(rd American edn),
p. –. William Radde, New York ()
Similar diseases are cured by similar things.
J. B. S. Haldane –
British geneticist and author
I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.
Written when mortally ill with cancer, JBS(Ronald Clark)
Science is vastly more stimulating to the
imagination than are the classics.
Daedalus
There are a few honest antivivisectionists. I have
not met any of them, but I am quite prepared to
believe that they exist.
Possible Worlds‘Some Enemies of Science’
Early diagnosis of disease is the business of the
general public even more than of the medical
profession.
Possible Worlds‘The Time Factor in Medicine’
I am quite sure that our views on evolution would
be very different had biologists studied genetics
and natural selection before and not after most of
them were convinced that evolution had occurred.
Attributed
The progress of biology in the next century will
lead to a recognition of the innate inequality of
man. This is today most obviously visible in
the United States.
AttributedSir Peter Hall –
British theatre director
We do not necessarily improve with age; for better
or worse we become more like ourselves.
The Observer‘Sayings of the Week’, January ()John Halle –
English surgeon
A surgeon should have three diverse properties in
his person. That is to say, a heart as the heart of a
lion, his eyes like the eyes of a hawk, and his
hands the hands of a woman.
Epistle to the Reader in the translation of Lanfranchi’s
Chirurgia Parva
But chiefly the anatomy
Ye ought to understand;
If ye will cure well any thing,
That ye do take in hand.
An Historical ExpostulationWilliam Stewart Halsted –
US surgeon
The intern suffers not only from inexperience,
but also from over-experience.
Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital: ()
The only weapon with which the unconscious
patient can immediately retaliate upon the
incompetent surgeon is haemorrhage.
Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital: ()Alexander Hamilton –
Professor of Midwifery, Edinburgh
It is particularly observed in surgical wards that
there is such a state of the air sometimes as
produces almost in every wound symptoms of
erysipelas and even, mortification ...when such a
state of the air was present puerperal fever raged
violently.
The Age of Agony p. Guy Williams. Constable and Co.
Ltd, London ()Walton H. Hamilton –
US physician
The art of medicine is intricate; the relation of the
treatment of the sick to results obtained cannot be
appraised by a layman; in medicine, almost more
certainly than anywhere else, the patient has not
the knowledge requisite for judgment.
Dissenting Opinion on the Report of the Committee on
American Medicine() · .