Health and medicine quotes

"It’s supposed to be a secret, but I’ll tell you anyway. We doctors do nothing. We only help and encourage the doctor within." 
– Albert Schweitzer, German Alsatian theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician (M.D.) –

"There are no such things as incurable, there are only things for which man has not found a cure."
– Bernard Mannes Baruch, U.S. financier and adviser to presidents –

"Prevention of disease must become the goal of every physician."
– Henry E. Sigerist –

"Medicines are of subordinate importance because of their very nature they can only work symptomatically." 
– Hans Kusche, M.D. –

The superior doctor prevents sickness; the mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; the inferior doctor treats actual sickness.
– Chinese Proverb –

"The best doctor gives the least medicines."
– Benjamin Franklin –

"Medicine is only palliative, for back of disease lies the cause, and this cause no drug can reach."
– Wier Mitchel, M.D. –

When diet is wrong medicine is of no use. When diet is correct medicine is of no need.
– Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb –

"It is from nature that the disease arises and from nature comes the cure, not from the physician."
– Paracelsus –

"It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing."
– Norman Cousins, writer, editor, promoter of holistic healing –

"Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing."
– François-Marie Arouet Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher –

"Every educated physician knows that most diseases are not appreciably helped by medicine."
– Richard C. Cabot, M.D. (Mass. Gen. Hospital) –

"In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is probably that he is relying upon a scientific "truth", the error of which will become obvious in just a few years’ time."
– Marcel Proust, writer –

"The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
– Thomas A Edison –

"The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."
– William Osler, M.D. –

 

"The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes, is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance. It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills."
– HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales –

"Why would a patient swallow a poison because he is ill,or take that which would make a well man sick."
– L.F. Kebler, M.D. –

"The treatment with poison medicines, comes from the West."
– Huang Ti, Chinese Emperor 2697 – 2579BC –

"The doctor has been taught to be interestednot in health but in disease.What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease."
– Ashley Montagu –

"At the end of times the merchants of the world will deceive the nations through their Pharmacia." (sorcery)
– Rev. 18:23 –

"I find medicine is the best of all trades because whether you do any good or not you still get your money."
– Moliere (A Physician in Spite of Himself) –

"The greatest part of all chronic disease is created by the suppression of acute disease by drug poisoning."
– Henry Lindlahr, M.D. –

"The cause of most disease is in the poisonous drugsphysicians superstitiously give in order to effect a cure."
– Charles E. Page, M.D. –

"The truth is that our race survived ignorance;it is our scientific genius that will do us in."
– Stephen Vizinczey –

 

"What hope is there for medical scienceto ever become a true sciencewhen the entire structure of medical knowledgeis built around the idea that there is an entity called diseasewhich can be expelled when the right drug is found?"
– John H. Tilden, M.D. –

"We have to ask ourselves whether medicineis to remain a humanitarian and respected professionor a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering."
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross –

"Medical practice has neither philosophynor common sense to recommend it. In sickness the body is already loaded with impurities.By taking drug – medicines more impurities are added,thereby the case is further embarrassed and harder to cure."
– Elmer Lee, M.D., Past Vice President, Academy of Medicine. –

"We are prone to thinking of drug abusein terms of the male populationand illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.It may surprise you to learn that a greater problem existswith millions of women dependent on legal prescription drugs."
– Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. –

"Our figures show approximately four and one half million hospitaladmissions annually due to the adverse reactions to drugs.Further, the average hospital patient has as much as thirty percent chance, depending how long he is in,of doubling his stay due to adverse drug reactions."
– Milton Silverman, M.D. (Prof. of Pharmacology, University of California) –

"Drugs never cure disease.They merely hush the voice of nature’s protest,and pull down the danger signals she erectsalong the pathway of transgression.Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with lateron even though it palliates present symptoms.Pain may disappear, but the patient is left in a worse condition,though unconscious of it at the time."
– Daniel. H. Kress, M.D. –

"Drug medications consists in employing, as remedies for disease,those things which produce disease in well persons.Its materia medica is simply a lot of drugsor chemicals or dye-stuffs in a word poisons.All are incompatible with vital matter; all produce diseasewhen brought in contact in any manner with the living;all are poisons."
– R.T. Tral, M.D., (lecture to members of Congress and the medical profession, at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.) –

"The necessity of teaching mankind not to take drugs and medicines, is a duty incumbent upon all who know their uncertainty and injurious effects;and the time is not far distantwhen the drug system will be abandoned."
– Charles Armbruster, M. D. –

"The natural force within each of us is that greatest healer of all."
– Hippocrates –

"Without health life is not life;it is only a state of langour and suffering- an image of death."
– Buddha –

More quotes? See Health and Freedom quotes