Life is a malady whose one medicine is Death.

-Abu'l-'Ala¤   Al-Ma'arri
c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 41 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

   I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp, gaunt names that never get fat, The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims, The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

-Bene¤  t, StephenVincent
  'American Names'.

The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don't.

-Bennett, Alan
  Habeas Corpus.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Proverbs17:22.

A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Ecclesiasticus 6:16.

Grief is itself a med'cine.

-Cowper,William
  Poems,'Charity', l.159.

In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but its effects.

-Fulbright,J(ames) William
  Speech to the US Senate, 21  Apr.

A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
  On English Poetry,'Definitions'.

Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows tracings of her workings apart from the beaten paths; nor is there any better way to advance the proper practice of medicine than to give our minds to the discovery of the usual law of nature, by careful investigation of cases of rarer forms of disease.

-Harvey,William
  Letter to  John Vlackveld, 24  Apr.

Is there no way to beget In my limbs their former heat? Aeson had (as Poets fain) Baths that made him young again: Find that Medicine (if you can) For your dry-decrepit man: Who would but fain his strength renew, Were it but to pleasure you.

-Herrick, Robert
  'To His Mistress'.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusionthat Iamsuffering fromtheparticulardisease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.

-Jerome,Jerome K(lapka)
  Three Men in a Boat, ch.1.

Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality.

-Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)
  Prejudices.

I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.

-Miller,JonathanWolfe
  In the Observer, 5 Feb.

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.

-Osler, Sir William
Quoted in H Cushing Life of Sir William Osler (1925), vol.1, ch.14.

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

-Osler, Sir William
Collected in W B Bean (ed) Sir William Osler:  Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings (1950).

Medicine is a noble profession but a damn bad business.

-Rolleston, Humphrey
  Quoted in Who SaidWhatWhen (1988).

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine, now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

-Szasz,Thomas Stephen
  The Second Sin.

Yas |¤ , enfermos, ojo alerta, y a ning u¤ n me¤  dico admitan; mueran de gorra, sin dar un real a la medicina. Be careful then, patients, and don't accept any doctor; die for free and do not give a single coin to medicine.

-Valle y Caviedes,Juan del
  Diente del Parnaso ('Parnassus' Tooth'),'Pro¤  logo al que leyere este tratado'.

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

-Voltaire pseudonym of  Fran c° ois Marie Arouet
Attributed.