He [Whatley] wanted to democratise medicine. He wanted to take the knowledge out of their hands and make it available to everyone. And of course he came up against incredible opposition. Richard Horton, editor The Lancet
The history of Islamic medicine is the history of our medicine. Dr Peter Pormann, University of Warwick
It was how it was imposed on Africa. It was here that clear breakthroughs were made that helped develop the West’s most unlikely and killer app ... the medicine. Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? IV Medicine, Channel 4 2011
The French empire had begun with slavery. ibid.
Here was another kind of imperial hero – the bacteriologist. ibid.
The scramble for Africa has become a byword for the ruthless exploitation of an entire continent by rapacious Europeans. But it was also a scramble for scientific knowledge. With the spread of railways went the spread of western civilisation and its killer app – modern medicine. This was the original medecins sans frontieres – doctors without borders. It is a point often overlooked by those like Gandhi who maintain that the European empires had no redeeming feature. bid.
The Germans were the latecomers to the African party ... For the Germans it was a testing ground for racial theory. ibid.
Perhaps most disturbing is the suggestion that ADHD is nothing more than the invention of pharmaceutical companies who have used clinical trials to create a disease that can be treated with their drugs. Mail on Sunday article 27th November 2007, The Scandal of Kiddy Coke
Avoid nostrums and patent medicines. The habitual use of any drug is harmful. The most eminent physicians are now agreed that very few drugs have any real curative value. The essential thing is right habits of life. John Harvey Kellogg
The takeover of the medical industry was accomplished by the takeover of the medical schools. Well the people we’re talking about – Rockefeller and Carnegie in particular – came to the picture and said, We will put up money ... They skewed the whole thing in the direction of pharmaceutical drugs. G Edward Griffin, World Without Cancer
Anything that comes from Nature can’t be patented. G Edward Griffin
Then the IMF, in the shape of brilliant young men from investment banks in Massachusetts, made their final demand. They wanted prescription charges imposed on medicines. Wilson’s ministers begged, wheedled, and offered all sorts of other cuts in exchange. Free medicine, they whined, was the sacred cow of the Labour Party. Of all the policies they had introduced when they first came into office four years previously, they were proudest of their removal of the health charges. The great Aneurin Bevan, along with Harold Wilson, had resigned from a former government on the issue. Could they please, they implored, be spared the health charges?
The IMF, sensing its certain victory, and knowing well how important it was to humiliate the government in the eyes of its socialist supporters, stuck firm. Though the health charges were only peanuts in the context of total government spending – some £8 million+ – it insisted on them. The Labour ministers surrendered. A great portrait of them with their hands in the air should be unveiled at Labour Party headquarters and dedicated to all those who suppress their socialist opinions so that the next Labour government can do the ‘little things’. Paul Foot, The Case For Socialism ch6
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. Voltaire
Regimen is superior to medicine. Voltaire
I find the medicine worse than the malady. John Fletcher, Love’s Cure c.1610
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, 1631-1700
Diagnoses of mental disorders in children and adolescents are increasing at an alarming rate, especially in the USA where the number of manic depressive children has gone up by 4000% over the past 10 years. The most widely used treatments are psychotropic drugs. Panorama, Kids on Pills, BBC 2000
In Europe different medical terms are applied to psychiatric irregularities in children ... The bipolar profile fitted a mere 7% of patients. ibid.
ADHD is currently the most frequent mental illness in children. ibid.
Using psychotropic drugs to treat children is a very recent science. ibid.
The tendency to reach out for pills is increasing in Europe too. ibid.
Have you ever taken an antibiotic? And did you really need this miracle medicine? Tonight Panorama investigates the rise of the superbugs. Panorama: Antibiotic Apocalypse, BBC 2015
The NHS clinic offering detox for people who are hooked on prescription drugs. Panorama, Hooked on Painkillers, BBC 2015
GPs are prescribing record doses of potentially addictive painkillers. Around four million people in the UK are now taking drugs in the same family as heroin. ibid.
Not poppy, nor mandrogora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday. William Shakespeare, Othello III iii 331
For centuries there was only one substance that could reliably relieve pain: opium. A resin extracted from poppies, it is one of mankind's oldest and most addictive drugs. Michael Mosley, Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines I: Pain
The Black Death of the 14th century killed a quarter of Europe’s population. And then there’s tuberculosis. Michael Mosley, Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines II: Pus, BBC 2013
Miasma theory was replaced by germ theory. ibid.
Pus is the debris left behind when the white blood cells of our immune system take on invading bacteria. ibid.
Penicillin: an international search was launched and samples of mould found anywhere and everywhere in the world were flown to labs in US transport. ibid.
Viruses are up to a hundred times smaller than bacteria, and far far simpler. ibid.
The smallpox virus is held in a level 4 containment lab. ibid.
From the natural world to the man-made it’s a tale of greed, tragedy, hope and chance. Michael Mosley, Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines III: Poison
Throughout the nineteenth century tales of sinister poisoners and unfortunate accidents filled the newspapers. ibid.
It has been estimated that around ten thousand babies were severely disabled by Thalidomide. ibid.
Botox is the most expensive product on Earth. ibid.
Personalised medicine is set to be the next Big Step. ibid.
Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity. Hippocrates
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases. Karl Marx
And I do not take my medicines from the apothecaries; their shops are but foul sculleries, from which comes nothing but foul broths. As for you, you defend your kingdom with belly-crawling and flattery. How long do you think this will last? ... Let me tell you this: every little hair on my neck knows more than you and all your scribes, and my shoebuckles are more learned than your Galen and Avicenna, and my beard has more experience than all your high colleges. Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus
Arguably the greatest technological triumph of the century has been the public-health system, which is sophisticated preventive and investigative medicine organized around mostly low- and medium-tech equipment ... fully half of us are alive today because of the improvements. Richard Rhodes, Visions of Technology, 1999
Here lies one who for medicines would not give
A little gold, and so his life he lost;
I fancy now he’d wish again to live,
Could he but guess how much his funeral cost. Anonymous
I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to me the more we learn about living creatures, especially ourselves, the stranger life becomes. Lewis Thomas
’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 l5
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. ibid. II:223