“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”

— Voltaire

This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956 http://books.google.pt/books?id=lCtCAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&dq=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=mbnWUsvDIfTB7Aaw_YD4Dw&redir_esc=y; the quotation in French does not, however, appear to be original, and is probably a relatively modern invention, only quoted in recent (21st century) published works, which attribute it to "Voltaire" without citing any source.
Original: (fr) Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont ils savent très peu, à des malades dont ils savent moins, pour guérir des maladies dont ils ne savent rien.

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Voltaire 167

French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

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“Doctors are men who prescribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, for human beings of which they know nothing.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont ils savent très peu, à des malades dont ils savent moins, pour guérir des maladies dont ils ne savent rien.
This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956 http://books.google.pt/books?id=lCtCAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&dq=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=mbnWUsvDIfTB7Aaw_YD4Dw&redir_esc=y; the quotation in French does not, however, appear to be original, and is probably a relatively modern invention, only quoted in recent (21st century) published works, which attribute it to "Voltaire" without citing any source.
Attributed

“Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

7:87
Variant translation: What cannot be cured by medicaments is cured by the knife, what the knife cannot cure is cured with the searing iron, and whatever this cannot cure must be considered incurable.
Aphorisms

“Love is the primary cure of all the diseases. But no one knows the cure of love.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“As long as diseases afflict living beings
May I be the doctor, the medicine
And also the nurse
Who restores them to health.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”

Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) Austrian zoologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.

“Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

As quoted in The Pursuit of Learning in the Islamic World, 610-2003 http://books.google.com.bh/books?id=KTWDxDEY-Q0C&lpg=PA75&dq=Medicine%20considers%20the%20human%20body%20as%20to%20the%20means%20by%20which%20it%20is%20cured%20and%20by%20which%20it%20is%20driven%20away%20from%20health.&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q=Medicine%20considers%20the%20human%20body%20as%20to%20the%20means%20by%20which%20it%20is%20cured%20and%20by%20which%20it%20is%20driven%20away%20from%20health.&f=false (2006), by Hunt Janin, p. 75.

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

This has been reprinted many times with slight variations on the wording; it is part of a much larger quote directly from Edison published in 1903:
:Nineteen hundred and three will bring great advances in surgery, in the study of bacteria, in the knowledge of the cause and prevention of disease. Medicine is played out. Every new discovery of bacteria shows us all the more convincingly that we have been wrong and that the million tons of stuff we have taken was all useless.
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.
They may even discover the germ of old age. I don't predict it, but it might be by the sacrifice of animal life human life could be prolonged.
Surgery, diet, antiseptics — these three are the vital things of the future in preserving the health of humanity. There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of diseases as now, and all their discoveries are tending to the simple truth — that you can't improve on nature.
:* As quoted in "Wizard Edison" in The Newark Advocate (2 January 1903), p. 1 according to research by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson at snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/edison.asp.
1900s

“Everything' is infinite. Which will be impossible for anyone to know. Human beings only care about methods of survival and nothing else.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Every man who has thought, knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows, and how ignorant, after all, the world must be.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

“He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

"Oscariana" (1907), Complete Works, p. 32 https://books.google.com/books?id=-CtXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32

“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”

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Voltaire 167

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