Medicine

The decisions are being made in the boardroom and not in the exam room as to what's in the patient's best interest.
~ Dr. William E. Berger, The Associated Press (28 November 2002). FDA Sends Claritin Over the Counter

I have been accustomed for some time past, to apply leeches to the inflamed testicle, which practice has always been followed with most happy effects.
~ William Buchan, Domestic Medicine, or a Treatise on the Presentation and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines (1797).

Physic and blister, powders and pills,
And nothing sure but the doctors' bills.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from Farm Legends (1875). The Doctor's Story

A drydock is a physician who won't give you a prescription.
~ Captain Billy's Whiz Bang (January 1922), in Studies in American Humor. Volume III (January 1977); William Cole From Scatology to Social History: Captain Billy's Whiz Bang

Grief is itself a medicine, and bestow'd
To improve the fortitude that bears the load.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Charity

The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick,
Whom, snoring, she disturbs.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book I. The Sofa

To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach.
~ William Cowper, Letter to Lady Hesketh (1765).

I fear I am only known as an admirer of Sutton's outlook on life, and none of my stones put on the path of progress in medicine will ever be recalled.
~ William Dock, (1980)

What do doctors know? They make their livings advising people to do whatever they are not doing at the time, which is the extent of anyone's knowledge of the degenerate ape.
~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (October 1929). April Sixth, 1928

Today, through the overuse of antibiotics, many of our most deadly diseases are showing significant resistance to our best line of defense antibiotics. It's critical that we find new ways to combat these diseases and ensure that doctors and patients are aware of the impact of over-prescribing on increasing antimicrobial resistance.
~ Bill Frist (introducing a bill to strengthen protections from national health threats), Press Conference, Washington DC (29 November 2000).

The road to medical knowledge is through the Hunterian Museum and not through an apothecary's shop.
~ William Withey Gull

Operating in gloves was an evolution rather than an inspiration or happy thought, and it is remarkable that during the four or five years when as operator I wore them only occasionally, we could have been so blind as not to have perceived the necessity for wearing them invariably at the operating table.
~ William Stewart Halsted

Ex ovo omnia. Everything from an egg.
~ William Harvey (on the origin of life), Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (Essays on Generation in Animals) (1651).

[The heart] is the household divinity which, discharging its function, nourishes, cherishes, quickens the whole body, and is indeed the foundation of life, the source of all action.
~ William Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; 1628).

The 1950s were the golden age of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections. We are now in the early years of the golden age of antiviral drugs.
~ William A. Haseltine, in Human Genome Sciences Scientific American Article Describes New Golden Age of Antiviral Drugs and Vaccines (22 October 2001)

Here's how I'd like to retire. ... Somebody comes into my office, 65, parents had Alzheimer's. I send him out for a scan. Either I say, "There's nothing there." Or "You have the earliest stages of amyloid deposition. It's no big deal. Start on anti-amyloid drugs. Don't worry." That's where I'd like to end.
~ Dr. William Klunk, quoted in The Associated Press (11 January 2003). Medical first: New scans show Alzheimer's in a living brain

The exciting thing of course, is not so much what people say about it, but to see somebody who is doomed to die, live and be happy. ... That is the reward. And that, of course, also sustains you to not pay too much attention to the detractors of what you're doing.
~ Willem Kolff, Interview in the American Academy of Achievement (15 November 1991).

That loose thing's just an old Dewar's cap floating around.
~ Bill "The Spaceman" Lee (on viewing xrays of his foot), quoted in Tales from the Red Sox Dugout (2000).

A great doctor kills more people than a great general.
~ Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

A specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less.
~ William James Mayo, M.D.

Given one well-trained physician of the highest type, he will do better work for a thousand people than ten specialists.
~ William James Mayo, M.D.

It (has become) necessary to develop medicine as a cooperative science; the clinician, the specialist, and the laboratory workers uniting for the good of the patient. Individualism in medicine can no longer exist.
~ William James Mayo, M.D., Commencement Address, Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL (1910).

The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life; the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician.
~ William James Mayo, M.D., Proc Natl Educ Assoc. (Address given at the 66th Annual Meeting of the National Education Association, Minneapolis, July 1-6, 1928). The aims and ideals of the American Medical Association

The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered.
~ William James Mayo, M.D., Commencement Address, Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL (1910).

The church and the law deal with the yesterdays of life; medicine deals with the tomorrows.
~ William James Mayo, M.D., Collected Papers Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation (1931). The preliminary education of the clinical specialist

The examining physician often hesitates to make the necessary examination because it involves soiling the finger.
~ William James Mayo, M.D., Journal-Lancet. 35:339 (1915)

Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. [Arresting people for] medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It's an outrage within an outrage within an outrage.
~ Peter McWilliams, Speech at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC (1998)

Physician, help yourself: thus help your patient too. Let this be his best help: that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The sick man is a parasite of society. In certain cases it is indecent to go on living. To continue to vegetate in a state of cowardly dependence upon doctors and special treatments, once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, ought to be regarded with the greatest contempt by society.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888). Skirmishes in a War with the Age

A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.
~ William Osler, quoted in Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. ... Put yourself in his place. ... The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look -- these the patient understands.
~ William Osler

For the general practitioner a well-used library is one of the few correctives of the premature senility which is so apt to take him.
~ William Osler, Dedication address, Boston Medical Library (1901). Books and Men

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
~ William Osler, Dedication address, Boston Medical Library (1901). Books and Men

In the fight which we have to wage incessantly against ignorance and quackery among the masses and follies of all sorts among the classes, diagnosis, not drugging, is our chief weapon of offence. Lack of systematic personal training in the methods of the recognition of disease leads to the misapplication of remedies, to long courses of treatment when treatment is useless, and so directly to that lack of confidence in our methods which is apt to place us in the eyes of the public on a level with empirics and quacks.
~ William Osler (address given at the closing exercises of the Army Medical School, Washington DC; 28 February 1894), in The Medical News (24 March 1894). The Army Surgeon

It is astonishing with how little reading a doctor can practise medicine, but it is not astonishing how badly he may do it.
~ William Osler, Dedication address, Boston Medical Library (1901). Books and Men

It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.
~ William Osler

Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conceptions of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book. See, and then reason and compare and control. But see first.
~ William Osler

One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician.
~ William Osler, quoted in Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicines.
~ William Osler, quoted in Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

Taking a lady's hand gives her confidence in her physician.
~ William Osler, quoted in Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

The critical sense and skeptical attitude of the Hippocratic school laid the foundation of modern medicine on broad lines, and we owe to it: first, the emancipation of medicine from the shackles of priestcraft and of caste; secondly, the conception of medicine as an art based on accurate observation, and, as a science, an integral part of the science of man and of nature; thirdly, the high moral ideas expressed in that "most memorable of human documents" (Gomperz), the Hippocratic oath; and fourthly, the conception and realization of medicine as a profession of a cultivated gentleman.
~ William Osler, Address at the Canadian Medical Association. Montreal, Canada (17 September 1902). Chauvinism in Medicine

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
~ William Osler, quoted in Harvey Cushing (1925). Life of Sir William Osler, vol. 1, Chapter 14

The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish.
~ William Osler, from Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practioners of Medicine (1904). The Master-word in Medicine (University of Toronto; 1903)

The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.
~ William Osler

There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.
~ William Osler (address given at the closing exercises of the Army Medical School, Washington DC; 28 February 1894), in The Medical News (24 March 1894). The Army Surgeon

There are only two sorts of doctors: those who practice with their brains, and those who practice with their tongues.
~ William Osler

There are regions, in partibus infidelium, to which you will go as missionaries, carrying the gospel of loyalty to truth in the science and in the art of medicine, and your lives of devotion may prove to many a stimulating example.
~ William Osler (address given at the closing exercises of the Army Medical School, Washington DC; 28 February 1894), in The Medical News (24 March 1894). The Army Surgeon

There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.
~ William Osler, quoted in Sir William Osler: Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

To have a group of cloistered clinicians away completely from the broad current of professional life would be bad for teacher and worse for student. The primary work of a professor of medicine in a medical school is in the wards, teaching his pupils how to deal with patients and their diseases.
~ William Osler

The best doctor in the world is a veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter -- he's got to just know.
~ Will Rogers

There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills. ... Your doctor bill should be paid like your income tax, according to what you have.
~ Will Rogers, Weekly Articles (13 July 1930).

We have finally started to notice that there is real curative value in local herbs and remedies. In fact, we are also becoming aware that there are little or no side effects to most natural remedies, and that they are often more effective than Western medicine.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef, Native Wisdom for White Minds (1995).

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
Will seize the doctor too.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act V, scene v

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act V, scene iii

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act II, scene i

Some griefs are medicinable.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act III, scene ii

Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act V, scene iii

Just a few years ago, talk of a potential vaccine for Alzheimer's disease would have been viewed with much skepticism and disbelief. Announcements like this that are grounded in solid scientific research give us tremendous hope. We now are testing the amyloid hypothesis with this vaccine and traditional drug therapy, and we are moving closer to identifying an intervention that will be able to alter the course of the disease.
~ William Thies, Ph.D. (on AN-1792 compound research), Alzheimer's Association News Release (11 July 2000). Alzheimer's Scientists Announce Initial Results of Alzheimer Vaccine

They are both really magnificent examples of how far the technology has come. Here we have the ability to actually image something in the human brain that previously could only be seen in an autopsy.
~ William Thies, Ph.D., The Associated Press (11 January 2003). Medical first: New scans show Alzheimer's in a living brain

This study underscores the importance of early diagnosis. These drugs do not represent the ultimate we all hope for -- a treatment that arrests the progress of Alzheimer's disease. But with early diagnosis, treatment can begin when it is likely to have the most beneficial impact for those with Alzheimer's and their caregivers.
~ William Thies, Ph.D. (on the benefits of cholinesterase inhibitors, as reported in JAMA), Alzheimer's Association News Release (9 January 2003). Alzheimer's Association Says Early Diagnosis and Treatment Improve Quality of Life

Medical education is not completed at the medical school; it is only begun.
~ William H. Welch, in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (July-December 1892).

You have a cough? Go home tonight, eat a whole box of Ex-Lax -- tomorrow you'll be afraid to cough.
~ Pearl Williams

When they ask me, as of late they frequently do, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing.
~ William Carlos Williams, in The New York Times (8 April 1986).

I'm gonna take my med right now. ... It helps me with my mental problems. 'Cause I heard voices in my head. It shut down my peace-joy bus ride for good.
~ Wesley Willis, The Washington Post (24 November 2000). Songs in His Head

You may not be able to read a doctor's handwriting and prescription, but you'll notice his bills are neatly typewritten.
~ Earl Wilson

It is much easier to write upon a disease than upon a remedy.
~ William Withering, from An Account of the Foxglove and Some of Its Medicinal Uses (1785). Introduction

We know that tens of thousands of seriously ill Americans are going to be shaken by today's news. It is appalling to see the insensitivity of our government in the face of so much real human suffering.
~ Bill Zimmerman, on U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative et al. (14 May 2001).