IJMC Doctors

                              IJMC - Doctors

To anyone who noticed the IJMC was missing for a day (ok, so I sent out 
an extra post to make up for it, it was still 2 at once...) I'm back. My 
computer now has a split personality; press a switch and Win95 comes up, 
press the switch again and good ole DOS returns. Gotta love technology. 
Of course, it took a few days to do so the IJMC slacked off. Aaaaand, 
I'll be away from the computer (got to have a life sometime!) this 
weekend, so don't expect a posting on Saturday night (Atlanta, GA, USA 
date/time...). Lastly, if you saw the eclipse tonight, I'm jealous. The 
Atlanta skyline was coated in clouds.                              -dave





                                DOCTORS

                               1. Essence


   4          The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while
              nature cures the disease.

                                                         Voltaire (1694-1778)


   5          God heals, and the doctor takes the fee.

                                                Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)



   7          A doctor is nothing more than a mental consolation.

                                               Petronius Arbiter (d. 66 A.D.)
                                                               Satyricon XLII



                                2. Opposites


   10         I love doctors and hate their medicine.

                                                     Walt Whitman (1819-1892)


   11         There are some remedies worse than the disease.

                                                Publilius Syrus (fl. B.C. 42)
                                                                Moral Sayings


   12         Physicians, of all men, are most happy:
              whatever good success they have, the world proclaimeth
              and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.

                                                  Francis Quarles (1592-1644)
                                             Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man



   23         I wondher why ye can always read a doctor's bill an' ye
              niver can read his purscription.

                                               Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)
                                                           Mister Dooley Says


   26         Psychoanalysis makes quite simple people feel they're
              complex.

                                                Samuel N. Behrman (1893-1973)




                                3. Insight


   30         The ideal doctor is patient.

                                            Robert Haven Schauffler (b. 1879)
                                                                     Aphorism


   31         The custom of giving patients appointments weeks in advance,
              during which time their illness may become seriously
              aggravated, seems to me to fall short of the ideal doctor-
              patient relationship.

                                               James Howard Means (1885-1967)
                                                               Daedalus, 1963


   38         I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not
              die of old age.

                                                         Voltaire (1694-1778)


   42         English physicians kill you, the French let you die.

                                                     Charles Lamb (1775-1834)


   43         A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only
              advise his client to plant vines.

                                               Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)


   44         The common people say, that physicians are the class of
              people who kill other men in the most polite and courteous
              manner.

                                                  John of Salisbury (d. 1180)
                                                                 Policraticus

                                                      Philemon (B.C. 361-262)


   55         The mark of a true doctor is usually illegible.

                                                                    Anonymous


   56         Half of analysis is anal.

                                                                  Marty Indik
                    Quoted in:  1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, R. Byrne



   58         It might be said of psychoanalysis that if you give it your
              little finger, it will soon have your whole hand.

                                                    Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
                                      Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis


   62         If a patient is poor he is committed to a public hospital as
              a "psychotic."  If he can afford a sanitarium, the diagnosis
              is "neurasthenia."  If he is wealthy enough to be in his own
              home under the constant watch of nurses and physicians, he
              is simply "an indisposed eccentric."

                                                     Pierre Janet (1859-1947)
                                    The Wit of Medicine (ed. L. and M. Cowan)



   67         I have made many mistakes myself; in learning the anatomy of
              the eye I dare say, I have spoiled a hatful; the best
              surgeon, like the best general, is he who makes the fewest
              mistakes.

                                             Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841)
                                                          Lectures on Surgery



                               4. Positive


   73         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 (1694-1778)
                                                   A Philosophical Dictionary



   83         He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most
              medicines.

                                                Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)


   84         Time is the best medicine.

                                                         Ovid (B.C.43-18A.D.)
                                                               Remedia amoris


   88         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 (1879-1935)
                                       The Autobiography of Will Rogers, 1949


   90         Physicians mend or end us;
              but though in health we sneer;
              when sick we call them to attend us,
              without the least propensity to jeer.

                                                            Byron (1788-1824)



                               5. Negative


   91         Doctors are men who prescribe medicines
              of which they know little,
              to cure diseases of which they know less,
              in humans beings of whom they no nothing.

                                                         Voltaire (1694-1778)


   92         Nearly all men die of their medicines, and not of their
              illnesses.

                                                          MoliSre (1622-1673)
                                                         Le Malade imaginaire


   94         Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window,
              except that the birds might eat them.

                                               Martin Henry Fischer (b. 1879)


   95         For every disease that doctors cure with medicine, they
              produce ten in healthy people by inoculating them with that
              virus which is a thousand times more powerful than any
              microbe:  the idea that one is ill.

                                                    Marcel Proust (1871-1922)


   96         When I take up assassination, I shall start with the
              surgeons in this city and work UP to the gutter.

                                                     Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
                                                    The Doctor and the Devils



   102        The doctors says there is no hope, and as he does the
              killing he ought to know.

                                             Gaspar Zavala y Zamora (d. 1813)
                                          El triunjo del Amor y de la Amistad



   108        He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand
              of the physician.

                                                   Ecclesiasticus (B.C. 200?)



                                6. Advice


   123        The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet
              and Doctor Merryman.

                                                   Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)


   124        Joy and Temperance and Repose
              Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

                                              Friedrich von Logau (1604-1655)
                                                             Die Beste Arznei



   132        Keep away from physicians.  It is all probing and guessing
              and pretending with them.  They leave it to Nature to cure
              in her own time, but take the credit.  As well as very fat
              fees.

                                                              Anthony Burgess
                                                         Nothing Like the Sun



   135        Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

                                                       Erma Bombeck (b. 1927)



   138        Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is
              that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and
              kill you.

                                                          Chekhov (1860-1904)



   151        The pen is mightier that the sword!  The case for
              prescriptions rather than surgery.

                                                                Marvin Kitman
                            Quoted in: Peter's Quotations, Ideas for Our Time



   154        Those in the United States who, by and large, have the best
              medical care and advice readily available to them at the
              least expense are the families of the specialists in
              internal medicine.  These families use less medicine and
              undergo less surgery on the whole than any other group, rich
              or poor.

                                                            Edward C. Lambert
                                 Quoted in: Barnes & Noble Book of Quotations



                           7. Poetry & Prose


   156        The surest road to health, say what they will,
              Is never to suppose we shall be ill; -
              Most of those evils we poor mortals know,
              From doctors and imagination flow.

                                                Charles Churchill (1731-1764)


   157        When people's ill, they come to I,
                I Physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em;
              Sometimes they live, sometimes they die.
                What's that to I?  I lets 'em.

                                                             John  C. Lettsom
                             Quoted in:  Say it Again, edited by Dorothy Uris


   158        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

                                                 Sir Samuel Garth (1661-1719)
                                                               The Dispensary



   171        They answered, as they took their fees,
              "There is no cure for this disease."

                                                   Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)


   172        "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 tomorrow.

                                                         John Gay (1688-1732)
                                      Fables I:  "The Sick Man and the Angel"




   177        The doctor found, when she was dead,
              Her last disorder mortal.

                                                        Goldsmith (1728-1774)



                             8. Jokes & Humor


   183        Patient: How do my X-rays look Doctor?
              Doctor:  Well I just talked to my accountant and it looks
                       like you're going to need surgery.




   184        All them surgeons - they're highway robbers.  Why do you
              think they wear masks when they work on you?

                                                                Archie Bunker
                                                            All in the Family


   185        Our doctor would never really operate unless it was
              necessary.  He was just that way.  If he didn't need the
              money, he wouldn't lay a hand on you.

                                                     Herb Shriner (1918-1970)



   188        A hospital should also have a recovery room adjoining the
              cashier's office.

                                                              Francis O'Walsh
                     Quoted in:  Peter's Quotations, ed. by Laurence J. Peter



   190        I think I know why doctors call it your annual checkup.
              Each year what goes up is your check.




   193        Q:  How many doctors does it take to screw in a light bulb?
              A:  It depends on whether or not the bulb has health
                  insurance.




   194        We're living in an age of medical specialists.  Nowadays
              what four out of five doctors recommend is another doctor.




   196          Exhausted by long, tense months of work, the doctor
              decides to unwind by going on a safari.  When he returns,
              his nurse asks him how he enjoyed himself.
                "It was terrible,"  he said,  "I didn't kill a thing.
              Frankly, I'd have been better off staying here."



   201        Dr. Rush, the pediatrician, was a man known to have very
              little patients...



   205        Never accept a drink from a urologist.

                                                       Erma Bombeck (b. 1927)



   213        A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive
              questions your wife asks for nothing.

                                                Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960)


   215        You go to a psychiatrist when you're slightly cracked
              and keep going until you're completely broke.

                                                                       Anon.


   216        Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head
              examined.

                                                   Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974)
                                                            The Great Goldwyn


   221        A job - weary woman on vacation sent her psychotherapist
              a card.  She wrote, "Having wonderful time - wish you were
              here to tell me why."

                                                                      Unknown



   223        Did you hear what the white rat said to the other
              white rat? . . . I've got that psychologist so well
              trained that every time I ring the bell he brings
              me something to eat.

                                                                 David Mercer
                                  A Suitable Case for Treatment, BBC TV, 1962



   232        Q:  Know why the prettiest nurse at the hospital is known as
                  "Appendix?"
              A:  Only the doctors are allowed to take her out.



IJMC September 1996 Archives