Blog: Two thousand years of “prevention is better than cure”

by Public Healthy - Andy Turner

Introduction

Turns out, it’s a long time. As is often the case, some of the earliest examples come from China. One of the best known is “the superior doctor prevents sickness; the mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; the inferior doctor treats actual sickness”. The quote is sometimes attributed to the Huangdi Neijing, a foundational Chinese medical text compiled sometime between the 4th century BCE and 3rd century AD, but is more often considered simply an ancient proverb.  In his 1926 collection of papers for the Chinese Medical Journal on Chinese medical sayings and proverbs, K. Chimin Wong attributed the quote to another text, Sun Simiao’s  Beiji qianjin yaofang (“Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand in Gold for Emergencies”) published in 652. Either way, it’s old. Wong collates various other sayings on preventative medicine (see below), but elsewhere also on diet, exercise and moderation.

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Tags: Blog, Prevention, Preventative Care,

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