Medically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Dentistry, Medicine and Nursing by C.C. Gaither, Alma E Cavazos-Gaither

Reviewed in The Journal of Irreproducible Results, vol. 49 #3.

Only a fraction of the quotations in this entertaining compendium are humorous, but quite a lot of them are witty, and most are wise. You can dip into it anywhere, and never fail to be diverted for however long you want, from seconds to hours.

"A drug is a substance which when injected into a guinea pig produces a scientific paper."

This book is meant not only for amusement but for scholarly reference. Anyone wanting to include a relevant quotation (famous or not) in their own writings can use this volume to find the best quotation. The Gaithers provide an index of subjects, by author. They also provide a separate index of authors, by subject. Whichever you have, and whichever you want, this book helps you get the right thing, and get it right. The compilers have scrupulously traced quotations to their sources, listed in an exhaustive 26-page bibliography. Readers finding gems from a source they never heard of can easily track down the whole book. Equally, it can remind you of an old favorite that's worth looking up again.

Max Planck: "An Experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer."

The cartoons by Andrew Slocombe fill out pages in good humor.

Dr. Leonard McCoy: "I'm a doctor, not an escalator."

"I'm a doctor, not a brick layer."

"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic."

"I'm a doctor, not a coal miner."

"I'm a doctor, not an engineer."

This book has extremely few proofing errors. The repetition of quotes from page 249 on page 250 are the worst - and trivial. Typography, printing, and binding, are all excellent, as expected from Institute of Physics Publishing. Other quotation books in the Gaithers' series from the same publisher, in similar bindings, cover most sciences and engineering.

John Allen Paulos: "Consider a precise number that is well known to generations of parents and doctors: the normal human body temperature of 98.6� Fahrenheit. Recent investigations involving millions of measurements reveal that this number is wrong; normal human body temperature is actually 98.2� Fahrenheit. The fault, however, lies not with Dr. Wunderlich's original measurements - they were averaged and sensibly rounded to the nearest degree: 37� Celsius. When this temperature was converted to Fahrenheit, however, the rounding was forgotten and 98.6� was taken to be accurate to the nearest tenth of a degree. Had the original interval between 36.5� and 37.5� Celsius been translated, the equivalent Fahrenheit temperatures would have ranged from 97.7� to 99.5�. Apparently, discalculia can even cause fevers."

Even in such a fine resource, I can quibble with a few choices. I wish the dates were included, where known. A lot of medicine has changed from dangerous, a few hundred years ago, to comparatively safe. Quotations of wisdom vary by the realities of the times, and those times are not noted.

A few items are parody songs, to sing to a well-known tune. But that isn't noted till the end of each item, by which time the reader has already read it unmusically. When an item should be sung to a certain tune, tell the reader before starting the lyrics.

"Cold: A curious ailment that only people who are not doctors know how to cure."

The decision to start each section on a new page means that the many sections with one or a few entries leave lots of white space.

This book belongs in many of the same places that The Journal of Irreproducible Results belongs: in all medical libraries and staff lounges, and with professionals who could use a diversion. It would make a good gift, and a good award.

Will Rogers: "We were primitive people when I was a kid. There were only a mighty few known diseases. Gunshot wounds, broken legs, toothache, fits, and anything that hurt you from the lower end of your neck down was known as a bellyache."

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