Quotes on MEDICINE



--One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.
(Alice James)



--If you're going to be a healer, it's not enough to read books and learn allegorical stories. you need to get your feet wet, get some clinical experience under your belt.
(Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Heal Thyself, 1993)



---Let's not kid ourselves. Whatever we diagnose, most patients, if they don't die, get well by themselves. Our job is mainly to try to make them feel better; do no harm.
(Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Wake Up Call, 1992 )



---Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
(Dr. Martin Henry Fischer )



---Don't live in a town where there are no doctors.
(Jewish Proverb)



---[Medicine is] a collection of uncertain prescriptions the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)



---Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint. However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack.
(Richter cartoon caption)



---One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
Sir William Osler (1849 - 1919)



---The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
Sir William Osler (1849 - 1919)



---Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.
Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973) "Science and Scientism"



---The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

I love those quotes. My father is a retired medical doctor. I think the current trend of advertising prescription drugs on television is absurd. And people wonder why prescription costs are so high. Stimulated demand drives prices, alright, but are consumers really the ones who ought to be initiating prescriptions?

I'm not a medic but I understand more about the drugs than my doctor. When she's diagnosed why can't I do the prescribing? Thus, (some, perhaps many) customers should be able to initiate scripts. After all, I am the one who prescribes my whiskey, wine, beer, paracetamol, sunshine, BBQ food and cigarettes, and they are much more damaging. (Some of the latter were metaphorical - see the brain's gone now). Nanny state goodbye, educated prol hello!