Catherine II ‒
Empress of Russia
Reduce the mortality rate, consult doctors, do
something about the care of young children. They
run about naked in their shifts in the snow and
ice. Those who survive are healthy, but nineteen
out of twenty die, and what a loss to the state.
Catherine the GreatCh. (Zoe Oldenbourg)
Dionysius Cato th century
Unknown author
Become old early if you wish to stay old long.
Moral Precepts
Benvenuto Cellini ‒
Florentine sculptor
Oh the powers of nature. She knows what we
need, and the doctors know nothing.
Autobiography
Aulus Cornelius Celsus BC‒AD
Roman encyclopaedist and physician
Now a surgeon should be youthful with a strong
and steady hand which never trembles, with
vision sharp and clear, and spirit undaunted; filled
with pity, so that he wishes to cure his patient, yet
is not moved by his cries, to go too fast, or cut less
than is necessary; but he does everything just as if
the cries of pain cause him no emotion.
De MedicinaVIII Proaemium (transl. W.G. Spencer)
The blood vessels that are pouring out blood are to
be grasped, and about the wounded spot they are
to be tied in two places, and cut across in between,
so that each may retract and yet have its opening
closed.
De MedicinaVIII Proaemium (transl. W. G. Spencer)—
perhaps the first description of dividing and ligating
blood vessels
Rubor, et tumor cum calor et dolor. (Redness and
swelling with heat and pain)
De Medicina—the four signs of inflammation
It is impossible to remedy a severe malady unless
by a remedy likewise severe.
De MedicinaII.xi.
The art of medicine has almost no constant rule.
De MedicinaProaemium
For major ills, major remedies.
De MedicinaProaemium i.
Always aid the organ that suffers most.
De MedicinaProaemium ii.
Miguel de Cervantes ‒
Spanish novelist
Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than
a diamond.
Don QuixoteI, Ch. ()
Well, now, there’s a remedy for everything except
death.
Don QuixoteII, Ch. ()
Sleep covers a Man all over, Thoughts and all, like
a Cloak; ’tis Meat for the Hungry, Drink for the
Thirsty, Heat for the Cold, and Cold for the Hot.
Dan QuixoteII, Ch. ()
The guts carry the feet not the feet the guts.
Don Quixote()Nicolas Chamfort ‒
French writer and wit
Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life.
Caracteres et anecdotesp. ()
Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few
good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.
Maximes et penseés()
Living is a sickness from which sleep provides
relief every sixteen hours. It’s a palliative. The
remedy is death.
AttributedChang Ch’ao c.
Chinese sage
It is easy to stand a pain, but difficult to stand an
itch.
Sweet Dream Shadows, quoted in Familiar Medical Quotations
Maurice B. Strauss (ed.). Little, Brown and Company,
Boston ()Charles V. Chapin ‒
US epidemiologist
As it takes two to make a quarrel, so it takes two to
make a disease, the microbe and its host.
Papers‘The Principles of Epidemiology’Jean Martin Charcot ‒
Paris neurologist
Disease is very old, and nothing about it has
changed. It is we who change, as we learn to
recognise what was formerly imperceptible.
De l’expectation en médecine
Symptoms, then are in reality nothing but the cry
from suffering organs.
Leçons cliniques sur les maladies des vieillards et les maldies
chroniques, Introduction, Sect. I
It is the mind which is really alive and sees things,
yet it hardly sees anything without preliminary
instruction.
Attributed
In the last analysis, we see only what we are ready
to see, what we have been taught to see. We
eliminate and ignore everything that is not a part
of our prejudices.
AttributedCharles II –
King of England
He had been, he said, a most unconscionable
time dying; but he hoped that they would
excuse it.
Quoted on his deathbed in History of England(Macaulay),
Vol. I, Ch. ·