Quotes from The Greatest Benefit to Mankind – A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present by Roy Porter. II: Medicine is an enormous achievement, but what it will achieve practically for humanity, and what those who hold the power will allow it to do, remain open questions

‘The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician,’ wrote Hippocrates. Even in Greek times opinions about medicine were mixed; the word pharmakos meant both remedy and poison – ‘kill’ and ‘cure’ were apparently indistinguishable. That double idea … Continue reading →