Kill or Cure Quotes

“Egyptian papyri mention temple attendants who cleansed patients and implemented regimes of diet and exercise.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“With regard to urinary problems, the rain forests of West and Central Africa are busy with modern bioprospectors looking for native medicines to convert into the latest “wonder drugs.” The bark extract from the stinkwood Prunus africana is processed in commercial quantities as the remedy pygeum. It is marketed worldwide for urinary problems in men with an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia). Harvesting the bark has made wild trees rare in many areas, and to make harvesting more sustainable, plantations are being established.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“Many African practitioners are expert herbalists and have an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants, mushrooms, toadstools, and other fungi of their region.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“Like the teachings of Hippocrates, the Charaka Samhita describes the qualities needed by a physician, and instructs how he should go about examining a patient to find the root cause of a disease, and how to make a prognosis and prescribe treatments. These treatments are minimally invasive, and involve specific diets and exercises and more than 2,000 plant-based remedies. The emphasis throughout the Charaka Samhita is on preventing illness by maintaining good hygiene and a healthy diet.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“The work deals extensively with fundamentals such as feeling the pulse, examining bowel products, observing the tongue, acupuncture, moxibustion, and concepts such as the flow of qi (energy), yin-yang, zang-fu, and the five phases. Feeling”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“Alchemists’ aims have varied through time and from place to place. Some of their best-known quests have included: changing “base” metals (common, ordinary, or inexpensive ones) such as lead, into precious metals, especially gold, using an object or formulation known as the Philosopher’s Stone; creating a substance that can dissolve any other substance—the Universal Solvent or Alkahest; inventing a potion that confers eternal youth on those who drink it—the Elixir of Life; producing a substance that can cure every disease and ailment—the Panacea or Universal Remedy.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“Some of the colonies allowed the lepers no rights whatsoever, since Catholic doctrine decreed that people with leprosy had already died and were effectively the “living dead.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine

“Hippocrates, who practiced in ancient Greece and was considered by many to be the father of modern medicine, found himself imprisoned for many years when he rejected the idea that illness was the whim of deities. Yet by the time he died, he had revolutionized the practice of medicine and established the basic foundations of the role of the physician.”
― Steve Parker, Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine