Hippocrates Quotes
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Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
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What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
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In all abundance there is lack.
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The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.
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All disease starts in the gut.
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The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pain and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed.
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When in sickness, look to the spine first.
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That which is used - develops. That which is not used wastes away.
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Divine is the task to relieve pain.
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The patient must combat the disease along with the physician.
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A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession.
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When doing everything according to indications, although things may not turn out agreeably to indication, we should not change to another while the original appearances remain.
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Keep a watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed. (XIV, Translated by W. H. S. Jones. LCL 148, Pages 296-297)
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There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.
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And if incision of the temple is made on the left, spasm seizes the parts on the right, while if the incision is on the right, spasm seizes the parts on the left.
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Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.
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Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil.
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Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable.
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Sport is a preserver of health.
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But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been victim of deception.
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Each of the substances of a man's diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends.
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An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.
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I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.
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Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things--to help, or at least to do no harm.