As an ardent Oslerphile, I have a thing for medical aphorisms. Osler, aside from being a master clinician, legendary teachers, and nerdy prankster (look up the publications of Egerton Yorick Davies, if you do not believe me), also had a knack for coming up with aphorisms that would stand the test of time. Another medical prodigy who had a knack for aphorisms was Rudolph Virchow - pathologist, polymath, socialist, and an elected politician! Yes, indeed, he wore several hats with aplomb. I was reminded of the quotability of Virchow's aphorisms over a small quibble in a Public Health WhatsApp group, about whether or not politics should be included in the discussions on health. Now, I am wise enough to know not to come anywhere near that discussion, so, I vamoosed after dropping off one of the best known, oft quoted, and more often misquoted, Virchow aphorism:
Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution.
Rudolph Virchow. From the original German "Die Medicin ist eine sociale Wissenschaft, und die Politik ist weiter nichts, als Medicin im Grossen." In his weekly medical newspaper, 'Der Armenarzt' (Poor Doctor), Die Medizinische Reform, (3 Nov 1848), 3, №18, 125. As translated in Henry Ernest Sigerist, Medicine and Human...
