# Medicine

Medicine is the science of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health.

## Quotes

* Medicine, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
** Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
* O Maruts holding Barhiṣa (ritual grass)! What medicine is in Sindhu, in Asiknī, in the Seas, and the Mountains? Finding them, please bring them with you. Please help us to cure the afflicted and make what has gone wrong in them, right again!
** Rigveda, 8.20.25. Quoted in Rivers of Rig-Veda by Jijith Nadumuri Ravi.

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 502-04.
* Medicus carat, Natura sanat morbus.
** The physician heals, Nature makes well.
** Idea in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII. 15. 7. Oxford text.
* A man's own observation, what he find good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.
** Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Regimen of Health.
* Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores, Sed genus species cogitur ire pedes.
** The rich Physician, honor'd Lawyers ride, Whil'st the poor Scholar foots it by their side.
** Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), I. 2. 3. 15. Quoted by Dr. Robert F. Arnold. A like saying may be found in Franciscus Floridus Sabinus—Lectiones Subcisive, Book I, Chapter I. Also John Owen—Medicus et I. C.
** Ovid, Fasti, I. 217; Amores, III, VIII. 55.
* 'Tis not amiss, ere ye're giv'n o'er, To try one desp'rate med'cine more; For where your case can be no worse, The desp'rat'st is the wisest course.
** Samuel Butler, Epistle of Hudibras to Sidrophel, line 5.
* Learn'd he was in medic'nal lore, For by his side a pouch he wore, Replete with strange hermetic powder That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder.
** Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto II, line 223.
* This is the way that physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer.
** Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto X, Stanza 42.
* Dios que dá la llaga, dá la medicina.
** God who sends the wound sends the medicine.
** Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, II. 19.
* Ægri quia non omnes convalescunt, idcirco ars nulla medicina est.
** Because all the sick do not recover, therefore medicine is not an art.
** Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II. 4.
* When taken To be well shaken.
** George Colman the Younger, Broad Grins, The Newcastle Apothecary, Stanza 12.
* Take a little rum The less you take the better, Pour it in the lakes Of Wener or of Wetter. Dip a spoonful out And mind you don't get groggy, Pour it in the lake Of Winnipissiogie. * Stir the mixture well Lest it prove inferior, Then put half a drop Into Lake Superior. Every other day Take a drop in water, You'll be better soon Or at least you oughter.
** Bishop G. W. Doane, Lines on Homeopathy.
* Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.
** John Dryden, Epistle to John Dryden of Chesterton, line 92.
* So liv'd our sires, ere doctors learn'd to kill, And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.
** John Dryden, To John Dryden, Esq, line 71.
* Even as a Surgeon, minding off to cut Some cureless limb, before in use he put His violent Engins on the vicious member, Bringeth his Patient in a senseless slumber, And grief-less then (guided by use and art), To save the whole, sawes off th' infected part.
** Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, Sixth Day, line 1,018.
* For of the most High cometh healing.
** Ecclesiasticus, XXXVIII. 2.
* One doctor, singly like the sculler plies, The patient struggles, and by inches dies; But two physicians, like a pair of oars, Waft him right swiftly to the Stygian shores.
** Quoted by Garth, The Dispensary.
* A single doctor like a sculler plies, And all his art and all his physic tries; But two physicians, like a pair of oars, Conduct you soonest to the Stygian shores.
** Epigrams Ancient and Modern. Edited by Rev. John Booth, London, 1863, p. 144. Another version signed D, (probably John Dunscombe) in note to Nichols' Select Collection of Poems.
* "Is there no hope?" the sick man said, The silent doctor shook his head, And took his leave with signs of sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
** John Gay, The Sick Man and the Angel.
* Oh, powerful bacillus, With wonder how you fill us, Every day! While medical detectives, With powerful objectives, Watch your play.
** William Tod Helmuth, Ode to the Bacillus.
* I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes.
** Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Lecture before the Harvard Medical School.
* A pill that the present moment is daily bread to thousands.
** Douglas Jerrold, The Catspaw, Act I, scene 1.
* Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
** A sound mind in a sound body is a thing to be prayed for.
** Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), X. 356.
* You behold in me Only a travelling Physician; One of the few who have a mission To cure incurable diseases, Or those that are called so.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, The Golden Legend (1872), Part I.
* Physician, heal thyself.
** Luke, IV. 23. Quoted as a proverb.
* And in requital ope his leathern scrip, And show me simples of a thousand names, Telling their strange and vigorous faculties.
** John Milton, Comus (1637), line 626.
* Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him."
** Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter XXXVII.
* How the Doctor's brow should smile, Crown'd with wreaths of camomile.
** Thomas Moore, Wreaths for Ministers.
* Dulcia non ferimus; succo renovamus amaro.
** We do not bear sweets; we are recruited by a bitter potion.
** Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III. 583.
* Medicus nihil aliud est quam animi consolatio.
** A physician is nothing but a consoler of the mind.
** Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon.
* I have heard that Tiberius used to say that that man was ridiculous, who after sixty years, appealed to a physician.
** Plutarch, De Sanitate tuenda, Volume II.
* So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
** Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 108.
* Learn from the beasts the physic of the field.
** Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 174.
* Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
** Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III.
* Banished the doctor, and expell'd the friend.
** Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 330.
* You tell your doctor, that y' are ill And what does he, but write a bill, Of which you need not read one letter, The worse the scrawl, the dose the better. For if you knew but what you take, Though you recover, he must break.
** Matthew Prior, Alma, Canto III, line 97.
* But, when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warm'd the politician, Cur'd yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.
** Matthew Prior, The Remedy Worse than the Disease.
* Physicians, of all men, are most happy: whatever good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.
** Francis Quarles, Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man.
* Use three Physicians, Still-first Dr. Quiet, Next Dr. Merry-man And Dr. Dyet.
** From Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, Edition 1607.
* By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doctor too.
** William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act V, scene 5, line 29.
* No cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death.
** William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act IV, scene 7, line 144.
* In poison there is physic; and these news, Having been well, that would have made me sick; Being sick, have in some measure made me well.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act I, scene 1, line 137.
* 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases Are grown so catching.
** William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act I, scene 3, line 36.
* * In this point All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic After his patient's death.
** William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act III, scene 2, line 39.
* Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
** William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act III, scene 4, line 33.
* How does your patient, doctor? Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies.
** William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act V, scene 3, line 37.
* Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, 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?
* Therein the patient Must minister to himself. Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
** William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act V, scene 3, line 40.
* If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.
** William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act V, scene 3, line 50.
* In such a night Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs That did renew old Æson.
** William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act V, scene 1, line 12.
* I do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—whom late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.
** William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act V, scene 1, line 37.
* You rub the sore, When you should bring the plaster.
** William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610-1612), Act II, scene 1, line 138.
* Trust not the physician; His antidotes are poison, and he slays More than you rob.
** William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act IV, scene 3, line 434.
* When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills.
** William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act II, scene 4, line 149.
* Crudelem medicum intemperans æger facit.
** A disorderly patient makes the physician cruel.
** Syrus, Maxims.
* He (Tiberius) was wont to mock at the arts of physicians, and at those who, after thirty years of age, needed counsel as to what was good or bad for their bodies.
** Tacitus, Annals, Book VI, Chapter XLVI. Same told by Suetonius, Life of Tiberius, Chapter LXVIII.
* Ægrescitque medendo.
** The medicine increases the disease.
** Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), XII. 46.
* But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor.
** Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique portatif ("A Philosophical Dictionary") (1764), Physicians.

## See also

* Health care
* Hippocratic Oath
* History of medicine
* Pharmaceutical industry
* Physicians
* Medical school