Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations

(WallPaper) #1

The material which I have employed is carbolic or


phenic acid, a volatile organic compound, which
appears to exercise a peculiarly destructive


influence upon low forms of life, and hence is the
most powerful antiseptic with which we are at


present acquainted.
British Medical Journal: ()
On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery


It is our proud office to tend the fleshy tabernacle
of the immortal spirit, and our path, if rightly
followed, will be guided by unfettered truth and
love unfeigned. In pursuit of this noble and holy
calling, I wish you God-speed.
Address University of Edinburgh, August ()


The irritation of the wound by antiseptic
irrigation and washing may therefore
now be avoided, and nature left quite
undisturbed to carry out her best methods
of repair.
Report of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science()


There are people who do not object to eating a
mutton chop, yet who consider it something
monstrous to introduce under the skin of a
guinea pig a little inoculation of some microbe to
ascertain its action.
British Medical Journal: ()


The profession to which I have the great honour
to belong is, I firmly believe, on the average, the
most humane of all professions.
British Medical Journal: ()


I regard that all worldly distinctions are as
nothing in comparison with the hope that I may
have been the means of reducing in some degree
the sum of human misery.
Address at Edinburgh, June ()


Anaesthetics have abolished the need for operative
speed and they allow time for careful procedures.
Lord Lister, His Life and Doctrine. E. S. Livingstone,
Edinburgh. ()


Next to the promulgation of the truth, the best
thing I can conceive that a man can do is the
public recantation of an error.
Attributed


Robert Liston –

Scottish-born surgeon


This Yankee dodge, gentlemen, beats Mesmerism
hollow.
University College London, Operating Room December
() (after performing the first operation in Europe
under ether)


James Little –

US professor of surgery


The first qualification for a physician is
hopefulness.


Liu Kung Cho

Chinese sage
The able doctor acts before sickness comes.

Derek Llewellyn-Jones –

Professor of Gynaecology, Sydney, Australia
Induced abortion, usually in defiance of the law, is
the oldest method of birth control and the most
common method by which women prevent the
birth of unwanted children.
People Populatingp. . Faber and Faber ()

David Lloyd George –

British Liberal statesman
When they circumcised Herbert Samuel, they
threw away the wrong bit.
Attributed to Lloyd George referring to the Liberal politician

Percy Lockhart Mummery –

Coloproctologist at St. Mark’s Hospital, London
Probably more reputations have been damaged by
the unsuccessful treatment of cases offistula than
by excision of the rectum or gastroenterostomy.
Perhaps that is why the largest surgical fee in
history was paid for the performance of an
operation for fistula.
Presidential Address to the Royal Society of Medicine ()

Robert F. Loeb –?

The patient should be managed the way the doctor
or a member of his family would wish to be treated
if he were that patient in that bed at that time.
Attributed

Oxyrhynchus Logia (Agrapha)

2nd century

A prophet is not acceptable in his own homeland,
nor does a physician work cures on those who
know him.
Gospel of Thomas, Saying (from the Eleventh Logion)

Warfield Theobald Longcope

–

US Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins

As I grow older, I have less and less sympathy with
the conscientious efforts merely to extend life in
old age.
Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital: ()

When a cure is impossible, it is the duty of the
physician to bring contentment, comfort or even
happiness to his patients to lighten their affliction.
But this does not mean necessarily that he should
limit living to prolong life.
Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital: ()

Each patient ought to feel somewhat the better
after the physician’s visit, irrespective of the
nature of the illness.
Attributed

  ·  

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