# Voltaire Quotation

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 13, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106 "2004-06-13T11:49:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/1 "2004-06-13T11:49:10Z")

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Can anyone give be a cite for the quote that I believe to be by Voltaire:

"Medicine is the art of entertaining the patient, as the body heals itself.”

Thanks

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**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/2 "2004-06-13T12:10:51Z")

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In french “L’art de la medecine consiste a distraire le patient pedant que la nature le guérit” . So that would be nature which heals the patient. Doesn’t make much of a difference.

Anyway, though I found many occurences of the quotation on google, none was giving the title of the book which would have included it (contrarily to many others Voltaire’s quotations I found in the process).

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**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/3 "2004-06-13T13:52:01Z")

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> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> In french “L’art de la medecine consiste a distraire le patient pedant que la nature le guérit” . So that would be nature which heals the patient. Doesn’t make much of a difference.
> 
> Anyway, though I found many occurences of the quotation on google, none was giving the title of the book which would have included it (contrarily to many others Voltaire’s quotations I found in the process).

Thanks for the translation.

I couldn’t find a cite on google either. Perhaps a Francophone polymath will drop by at some time!

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/4 "2004-06-13T15:18:27Z")

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I can’t find the answer as yet, but the original is probably

> [@](#):
>
> Physic is the art of amusing the patient, while nature cures the disease.

I found this quote referred to in the 1820’s in the US, and it was attributed as “says a foreign writer.”

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/5 "2004-06-13T16:04:14Z")

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…and the answer _may be_ **Moliere**.

In his _L’Amour Medicin, 1665_, he evidently describes physicians as men who “chatter nonsense in the bedchambers of the sick either till nature has cured or physic killed the patient.”

The above is NOT a direct quote, but rather a description which I stole from an 1811 article on the history of the French stage.

* * *

_A knowledgeable fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool._ Moliere.

\*Of all human follies there’s none could be greater than trying to render our fellow-men better. \* Moliere.

_Fighting ignorance since 1973–it’s taking longer than we thought._ Cecil Adams

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**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voltaire-quotation/250106/6 "2004-06-13T16:38:41Z")

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In Voltaire’s day this was more true than not. In fact, In a TV interview I heard the head of Sloan-Kettering hospital medical staff say that before the advent of antibiotics this was pretty close, if not 100% true. He named the development of sulfanilamide as the turning point.