Sir Harry Platt –
Professor of Orthopaedics, Manchester, and President
Royal College of Surgeons of England
A physician should not be a servant of any
government local or central, but of all the people
and available at all times to those seeking his
service.
Quoted in By the London Post(Dr John Lister), New England
Journal of MedicineJanuary ()
If you cannot make a diagnosis at least make a
decision.
Attributed
Lord Platt –
Professor of Medicine, Manchester, UK
A conclusion based upon a badly conceived
experiment is usually further from the truth than
one based on clinical observation.
Universities Quarterly: ()
The human lessons which medical practice
teaches are great and should be passed on to our
pupils.
Republic
There is a side to human behaviour in health and
disease which is not a thing of the intellect, which
is irrational and emotional but important. It is the
main spring of most of what we do and a great
deal of what we think. It is being explored by
psychiatry but is in danger of being neglected by
clinical science.
Republic
Future generations, paying tribute to the
medical advances of our time, will say: ‘Strange
that they never seemed to realize that the real
causes of ill-health were to be found largely
in the mind.’
British Medical Journal: ()
Titus Maccius Plautus –BC
Roman comic poet
’Tis a portentous sign
When a man sweats,
and at the time shivers.
AsinariaII.ii.
Whom the Gods love die young.
BacchidesIV.vii.
Pliny the elder AD–
Roman soldier and author
And there is no doubt that they all busy
themselves with our lives, in order by discovery of
some new thing or another to win reputations for
themselves.
Historia Naturalis‘Greek Physicians’
There is alas no law against incompetency; no
striking example is made. They learn by our bodily
jeopardy and make experiments until the death of
the patients, and the doctor is the only person not
punished for murder.
Historia Naturalis‘Greek Physicians’
The Roman people for more than six hundred
years were not without medical art but were
without physicians.
Historia Naturalis‘Greek Physicians’
There is nothing encourageth a woman sooner to
be barren than hard travail in child bearing.
Historia Naturalis‘Greek Physicians’
Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is
God’s best gift to man.
Natural HistoryII
In sickness the mind reflects upon itself.
Natural HistoryVII
The brain is the highest of the organs in position,
and it is protected by the vault of the head; it has
no flesh or blood or refuse. It is the citadel of
sense-perception.
Natural HistoryXI.Pliny the younger AD–
Roman orator, author and politician
The body must be repaired and supported, if we
would preserve the mind in all its vigour.
Epistles, Plutarch C.AD–
Greek essayist
Medicine, to produce health, has to examine
disease.
Lives‘Demetrius’
A man ought to handle his body like the sail of a
ship, and neither lower and reduce it much when
no cloud is in sight, or be slack and careless in
managing it when he comes to suspect something
is wrong.
Moralia‘Advice about Keeping Well’
It is contrary to nature for children to come into
the world with feet first.
Moralia‘Advice about Keeping Well’
Of all drinks, wine is the most profitable of
medicines, most pleasant, and of charity stands
most harmless; provided always that it will be well
tempered with opportunity of the time.
Moralia‘Advice about Keeping Well’
It is said that no woman ever produced a child
without the cooperation of a man.
Moralia‘Advice to Bride and Groom’Edgar Allan Poe –
US poet and writer
The boundaries which divide life from death are,
at best, shadowy and vague. Who shall say where
one ends and where the other begins?
Attributed () ·