Edited by Edward J Huth, T Jock Murray

American College of
Physicians, American Society
of Internal Medicine, 2000
ISBN 0 943126 83 5
Rating: ****

Shakespeare wrote, “And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe. And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale.” There are many tales to be told. And they are long tales. Medicine in Quotations contains the beginnings to many of them. With 3099 quotations it reminds us of the paths that medicine took for over 3000 years.

Medicine in Quotations is a compilation of citations about, as the subtitle states, “views of health and disease through the ages.” From abetalipoproteinemia to kidney function and the Zollinger­Ellison syndrome the book contains aphoristic wisdom about probably every imaginable medical subject. The topics are organised alphabetically, whereas the quotations themselves are presented in chronological order. A comprehensive subject index and author citation index help to find the right quotation. This is what makes the book a valuable reference work. But it also has a literary value as it contains artful formulations of the tasks and problems of medicine. It is one of few reference works that are worth reading from cover to cover. And some entries are very witty. For example, an anonymous Croatian epitaph says, “And I kept telling you I ached.”

There are, however, some shortfalls. Some subjects, such as pathology, are still underrepresented, while others have perhaps too many entries—for example, medical care. However, the editors are aware of these shortfalls and see the present work as a step towards an even more comprehensive collection. They urge readers to submit quotations that could be published in the second edition of the book.

If you wish to draw a moral from the book, on the one hand it testifies to the dramatic progress of medicine, on the other hand, it also confronts the reader with the crudeness of medical practice in the past.