It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to
execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let
them starve for their imbecility, society can
prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind. The principle that sustains
compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover
cutting the Fallopian tubes.
Journal of Heredity: ()
Specialised knowledge will do a man no harm if
he also has common sense, but if he lacks this, it
can only make him more dangerous to his
patients.
John Homans –
US professor of surgery
I prefer to be called a fool for asking the question,
rather than to remain in ignorance.
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: ()
Homer c.BC
Greek writer
He hath the flower of youth, wherein is the
fullness of strength.
IliadXIII.
Sleep and Death, who are twin brothers.
IliadXVI.
All deaths are hateful to miserable mortals, but
the most pitiable death of all is to starve.
OdysseyVII.
Earnest Albert Hooton –
US anthropologist
Medical science must cease to regard its function
as primarily curative and preventive. It must rid
itself of its obsession that its chief responsibility is
to the individual rather than society.
Apes, Men and MoronsCh. ()
James Hope –
UK physician and cardiologist
In the first place, never keep a patient sick when
you can do something for him. In the second
place, never take a higher fee than what you truly
feel you are entitled to. In the third place, always
pray for your patients.
Attributed
Johns Hopkins –
Baltimore grocer and founder of a hospital
The indigent sick of this city and its environs,
without regard to sex, age or colour, who may
require surgical or medical treatment, and who
can be received into the Hospital without peril to
the other inmates, and the poor of this city and
State.
Letter to the first Trustees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital,
March ()
Horace –BC
Roman poet
To save a man’s life against his will is the same as
killing him.
Ars Poetica
Anger is short-lived madness.
EpistlesI.ii.
Remember you must die whether you sit about
moping all day long or whether on feast days you
stretch out in a green field, happy with a bottle of
Falernian (wine) from you innermost cellar.
Odes.Lord Horder –
British physician, St. Bartholomews Hospital, London
It is the duty of a doctor to prolong life. It is not
his duty to prolong the act of dying.
Speech in House of Lords ()
The clinician who relaxes in punctilious
attendance at post-mortems... is departing from
the bed-rock of medicine itself. What he says at
the bedside may or not be the truth; what he sees
in the post-mortem room is the truth.
Lancet: –()
Our weakness was partly responsible for the fact
that the National Service Act was born in
dishonour. Put not your faith in politicians, they
come and go, but medicine goes on for ever.
Harley Streetp. , Reginald Pound. Michael Joseph,
London ()Pio de Rio Hortega –
Spanish neuroanatomist
Histology is an odd-tasting dish, repulsive as a
medicament to students, who must be examined
in it, and little liked by physicians who consider
their schooling finished. Taken in large quantities
under compulsion it is not absorbed, but if tasted
in little sips it finally becomes a delight to the
palate, and even a cause for addiction.
Article for his studentsRussel John Howard –
British surgeon, Royal London Hospital, London
The only competent observer is yourself.
Quoted by F. G. St. Clair Strange in The HipCh.
More mistakes are made from want of a proper
examination than for any other reason.
Quoted by F. G. St. Clair Strange in The HipCh.
Speed in operating should be the achievement, not
the aim, of every surgeon.
Quoted by F. G. St. Clair Strange in The HipCh. Ed Howe –
US writer
After a man is fifty you can fool him by saying he
is smart, but you can’t fool him by saying he is
pretty.
Country Town Sayings ·