This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Kate Millet, Katherine Murray Millett
The entire construct of the "medical model" of "mental illness"What is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.
Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see: and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.
Experience | History | Study |
When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine — like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing.
In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.
Between these two unique and symmetrical events, something happens whose ambiguity has left the historians of medicine at a loss: blind repression in an absolutist regime, according to some; but according to others, the gradual discovery by science and philanthropy of madness in its positive truth. As a matter of fact, beneath these reversible meanings, a structure is forming which does not resolve the ambiguity but determines it. It is this structure which accounts for the transition from the medieval and humanist experience of madness to our own experience, which confines insanity within mental illness. In the Middle Ages and until the Renaissance, man's dispute with madness was a dramatic debate in which he confronted the secret powers of the world; the experience of madness was clouded by images of the Fall and the Will of God, of the Beast and the Metamorphosis, and of all the marvelous secrets of Knowledge. In our era, the experience of madness remains silent in the composure of a knowledge which, knowing too much about madness, forgets it. But from one of these experiences to the other, the shift has been made by a world without images, without positive character, in a kind of silent transparency which reveals— as mute institution, act without commentary, immediate knowledge—a great motionless structure; this structure is one of neither drama nor knowledge; it is the point where history is immobilized in the tragic category which both establishes and impugns it.
Ambiguity | Discovery | Dispute | Experience | History | Insanity | Knowing | Knowledge | Madness | Philanthropy | Science | Unique | Will | World | Discovery |
We can see, then, how vain and idle are all those wearisome discussions as to whether such and such forms of knowledge may be termed truly scientific, and to what conditions they ought to be subjected in order to become so. The 'sciences of man' are part of the modern episteme in the same way as chemistry or medicine or any other such science... But to say that they are part of the epistemological field means simply that their positivity is rooted in it, that that is where they find their condition of existence. They are not, therefore, merely illusions, pseudo-scientific fantasies motivated at the level of opinions, interests, or beliefs. They are not what others call by the bizarre name of 'ideology'. But that does not necessarily mean that they are sciences.
In the medicine of species, disease has, as a birthright, forms and seasons that are alien to the space of societies. There is a ‘savage’ nature of disease that is both its true nature and its most obedient course: alone, free of intervention, without medical artifice, it reveals the ordered, almost vegetal nervure of its essence.
Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
The most tragic thing in the world and in life... is love. Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion; love is consolation in desolation; it is the sole medicine against death, for it is death's brother.
The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself.
Man |
The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. There is evil and disorder in the world because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts, petty desires, and anger. Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.
Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL
An anthill increases by accumulation. Medicine is consumed by distribution. That which is feared lessens by association. This is the thing to understand.
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
My love you, my children. Very few people will accept the medicine of wisdom. The mind refuses wisdom. But if you do agree to accept it, you will receive the grace, and when you receive that grace, you will have good qualities. When you acquire good qualities, you will know true love, and when you accept love, you will see the light. When you accept the light, you will see the resplendence, and when you accept that resplendence, the wealth of the three worlds will be complete within you. With this completeness, you will receive the kingdom of God, and you will know your Father. When you see your Father, all your connections to karma, hunger, disease, old age will leave you.
Age | Good | Love | Mind | Old age | People | Receive | Wealth | Will | Old |
What else is the help of medicine than love?
The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. If your heart is false, then also the doctor in you is false. If it is fair, then also the doctor is fair.
The physician is only the servant of nature, not her master. Therefore, it behooves medicine to follow the will of nature.
Will |
We know from our clinical experience in the practice of medicine that in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, the individual and his background of heredity are just as important, if not more so, as the disease itself.
Disease | Experience | Heredity | Individual | Practice |
Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents.
Truth in all its kinds is most difficult to win; and truth in medicine is the most difficult of all.
Truth |
Truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them.