Collected Works

• The practice of physic is jostled by quacks on the one side, and by science on the other.
  • Book I, p. xxv

• There is nothing so captivating as new knowledge.
  • Book I, p. 51.

• Truth in all its kinds is most difficult to win; and truth in medicine is the most difficult of all.
  • Book I, p. 60.

• Beware of language, for it is often a great cheat.
  • Book I, p. 138.

• The diagnosis of disease is often easy, often difficult, and often impossible.
  • Book I, p. 173.

• We should always presume the disease to be curable, until its own nature prove it otherwise.
  • Book I, p. 174.

• Fortunate, indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself, and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use, be it great or be it small!
  • Book II, p. 11.

• Common sense is in medicine the master workman.
  • Book II, p. 389.

• It takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth.
  • Book II, p. 398.

It takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth.

• Faith and knowledge lean largely upon each other in the practice of medicine.
  • Book II, p. 408.

• It is no easy task to pick one's way from truth to truth through besetting errors.
  • Book II, p. 415.

• It would be a great thing to understand pain in all its meanings.
  • Book II, p. 474.

• It is the great mystery of life itself which is at the bottom of all the mysterious language we are obliged to employ concerning it.
  • Book II, p. 494.

• People in general have no notion of the sort and amount of evidence often needed to prove the simplest matter of fact.
  • Book II, p. 525.

• Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents.
  • Desk Reference of Clinical Pharmacology - Page 1 by Manuchair S. Ebadi - Medical - 2008.

• Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is a rare thing; and so, it seems, is perfect disease.
  • Infertility Counseling: A Comprehensive Handbook for Clinicians - Page 179 by Linda Hammer Burns, Sharon N. Covington - Medical - 2000.