Medically Speaking
BOOK REVIEWS
ANZ Nuclear Medicine, March 2000
At last there is no excuse for us having to endure boring lectures and presentations at local and overseas annual scientific meetings. Acceptance of abstracts for these meetings should be conditional on the speeches being liberally laced with anecdotes, quotations and cartoons to keep the audience awake. This small book goes a long way to providing the material necessary for this purpose. The quotations are widely drawn from the days of the bible to the present time, and feature the usual suspects such as William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain and William Osler. Unknown also comes in for more than his/her fair share of glory. There are, however, many lesser known wits (to me at any rate) such as Ambrose Bierce, Finley Peter Dunne (both US journalists) and Oliver Holmes and William May (both US physicians) who provide accurate insights into the world of medicine.
Some of the older quotations, especially if they are long, sound rather dry and pompoous to modern ears. There is also some repetition of similar sayings, but I suppose these could not be omitted when the stated aim of the authors was to provide as comprehensive a book of medical quotations as possible.
I don't know if censorship, either self imposed or by the publisher, took place in the preparation of the book, but there is no doubt that quotations and illustrations are all 'prim and proper' and unlikely to offend even the most sanctimonious. What happened to all those risque aphorisms, rude anecdotes and crude mnemonics we heard as medical students? To mu mind the book is a lot poorer by their non-inclusion.
One of the strengths of this volume is the alphabetical table of contents, indexed by subject and author and the very complete bibliography, all of which take up over 20 per cent of the 481 pages. There is now no reason to attribute quotations incorrectly and remember 'if you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research'.
This book pokes fun at doctors, dentists and nurses. In Nuclear Medicine the other members of our professional fraternity such as technologists, physicists and radiopharmacists are equally deserving of attention and a serve. Luckily, one can easily adapt many of the quotations so that they become universally applicable. For example, the heart surgeon's ego is not unlike others: 'when you ask them to name the world's three leading practitioners in the field, they never can remember the names of the other two'.
In summary therefore, this is a good buy if you want to improve the quality of your presentations. Hopefully it will only be a matter of time before prizes at conerences are awarded not only for the best content, but also for the most enlightening and amusing talk.
Book editor's comment: Does the absence of any reference to 'physicist' in this 'Institute of Physics' publication suggest that physicists are beyond reproach? I'm afraid not; there is a companion volume available entitled 'Physically Speaking' published in 1977!
Simon Gruenewald Westmead Hospital, NSW
IPEM SCOPE, Volume 9 Number 2, June 2000
This is not the first book of medical quotations and anecdotes to be published, and it certainly will not be the last. As an example, many clinical scientists will be aware of Richard 'Mould's Medical Anecdotes', to name but one. But this recent compilation appears at first sight to have come from an unexpected source--IOP Publishing. However it is one of a series of five books which, as a set, sit naturally within the Institute of Physics stable, namely Statistically, Physically, Mathematically, Medically and finally 'Practically Speaking'.
The book runs to a substantial 375 pages of actual quotations, covering an extremely broad range of subjects from an eclectic range of authors. The initial index of categories covers six pages and ranges from abdomen to X-rays via topics such as ear wax, pimple and quack, electrocardiogram, radiologist and statistics. It concludes with an author index as well as an even more detailed subject index. Some authors you might expect to see; Christian Barnard, Alexander Fleming, Florence Nightingale, Charles and William Mayo. However this book also includes a wide range of other authors ranging from the literary (e.g. Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Franz Kafka, H.G. Wells) and the dramatic (Euripedes, Ben Johnson, Moliere, Shakespeare) to the classical (Hippocrates, Plautus, Sophocles), the scientific (Descartes, Einstein, Gabor, Weyl) and the totally unexpected (Alfred Hitchcock, Dr Leonard McCoy, Werner von Braun).
As to the quotations they are also many and varies. Some are philosophical and thought provoking, many are humerous and whimsical. Some are just plain curious. For example there are five pages of remedies from many different and often unknown sources. I am not sure when I am likely to either use or quote such gems as 'picking up a rock and spitting on it can get rid of warts' or 'place a copper penny on your navel to treat nausea'. The compilers are also clearly Star Trek fans as, in addition to some of Dr McCoy's choice lines, a section of dialogue from Checkov and Sulu is included. No Dr Who though! But the bulk of the quotations in this book are much likely to provoke thought or amusement and as such it includes a wealth of interesting and quotable material. It also contains numerous illustrations to accompany some of its more humorous additions.
Overall I found 'Medically Speaking' an enjoyable book to dip into and sample as well as representing a good source of medical quotes. It is quite a substantial, well presented and indexed book and includes a wider range of topics than any other compilation I have come across. But perhaps I should finish with a few examples. Pertinent to me at the moment is Esar's observation on toothache -- the pain in a tooth that sometimes drives you to extraction. Then there is Alfred Hitchcock's perfect cure for a sore throat -- cut it! Or, highly relevant to the whole of the medical profession in these days of evidence based medicine, Florence Nightingale's exhortation 'What you want are facts, not opinions...'.
Mike Keir
Aslib Book Guide, Vol. 65, No. 4 - April 2000
The quotations are arranged under subject headings from abdomen to X-rays and within each heading alphabetically by author. Quotations can be found using either a subject by author index or author by subject index. The range of quotations is very wide and more than 15,000 [1,500] are cuted. The book can be read for pleasure or used as a handy reference. An admirable text enlivened by humorous cartoons.
Return to Medically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Dentistry, Medicine and Nursing
