Matthew Prior –
English poet and diplomatist
You tell your doctor, that ye’re ill;
And what does he, but write a bill,
Of which you need not read one letter;
The worse the scrawl, the dose the better,
For if you knew but what you take,
Tho’ you recover he must break.
AlmaCanto III
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.
The Remedy is Worse than the Disease
Henry S. Pritchett –
US physician
By professional patriotism amongst medical men
I mean that sort of regard for the honour of the
profession and that sense of responsibility for its
efficiency which will enable a member of that
profession to rise above the consideration of
personal or professional gain.
Introduction to Abraham Flexner’s Medical Education in the
United States and Canada()
Marcel Proust –
French writer
Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief
that develops the powers of the mind.
A la recherche du temps perdu: Le Temps retrouvéVol. , Ch.
The mistakes made by doctors are innumerable.
They err habitually on the side of optimism as to
treatment, of pessimism as to the outcome.
A la recherche du temps perdu: Le Temps retrouvéVol. , Ch.
Neurosis has an absolute genius for malingering.
There is no illness which it cannot counterfeit
perfectly...If it is capable of deceiving the doctor,
how should it fail to deceive the patient?
Le Côté de GuermantesPt
Everything great in the world comes from
neurotics. They alone have founded our religions
and composed our masterpieces.
Le Côté de GuermantesPt
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to
kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only,
pain we obey.
Cities of the PlainPt I, Ch. ,‘My Social Life’
Proverbs
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
A disease known is half cured.
Age breeds aches.
An ill man is worst when he appeareth good.
All would live long but none would be old.
A man has often more trouble to digest food than
to get it.
Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
A surgeon should be young, a physician old.
Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune.
Blood is thicker than water.
Drunkenness turns a man out of himself, and
leaves a beast in his room.
Experience is the mother of science.
First do no harm. It is a good remedy sometimes to
do nothing.
Get your money when the patient is in pain.
God heals and the doctor takes the fee.
Health is the poor man’s riches and the rich man’s
bliss.
He lives long that lives till all are weary of him.
He that is uneasy at every little pain is never
without some ache.
He who physics himself poisons a fool.
Late children, early orphans.
Meddlesome midwifery is bad.
More die by food than famine.
Nature, time and patience are the three great
physicians.
Old age, though despised, is coveted by all men.
Patience is a plaster for all sores.
Physicians are costly visitors.
Scratching is bad because it begins with pleasure
and ends with pain.
Sickness is better than sadness.
Sickness is felt, but health not at all.
Temperance is the best physic.
The best smell is bread, the savour salt, the best
love that of children.
The best surgeon is he that has been well hacked
himself.
The choleric drinks, the melancholic eats, the
phlegmatic sleeps.
The eye is bigger than the belly.
The first breath is the beginning of death.
The presence of the doctor is the beginning of the
cure.
There are none so blind as those that cannot see.
There is a remedy for everything, could men find it.
The tongue is ever turning to the aching tooth.
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first
drive mad.
We are usually the best men when in the worst
health.
We are born crying, live complaining, and die
disappointed.
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