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Denis Burkitt
(28 Feb 1911 - 23 Mar 1993)
Irish surgeon and medical researcher who first identified Burkitt's lymphoma, and later championed the benefits of a high-fibre diet.
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Science Quotes by Denis Burkitt (7 quotes)
America is a constipated nation.... If you pass small stools, you have to have large hospitals.
— Denis Burkitt
Attitudes are more important than abilities
Motives are more important than methods
Character is more important than cleverness,
And the Heart takes precedence over the head.
Motives are more important than methods
Character is more important than cleverness,
And the Heart takes precedence over the head.
— Denis Burkitt
when asked to autograph his book
Diseases can rarely be eliminated through early diagnosis or good treatment, but prevention can eliminate disease.
— Denis Burkitt
If people are constantly falling off a cliff, you could place ambulances under the cliff or build a fence on the top of the cliff. We are placing all too many ambulances under the cliff.
— Denis Burkitt
Burkitt did not originate this idea; it is a paraphrase of lines from a poem (1895) by Joseph Malins, which ends: “Better put a strong fence ’round the top of the cliff/Than an ambulance down in the valley”. See 'The Ambulance Down in the Valley' (1895). Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for the wording in the paraphrase used by Burkitt. Can you help? Another early use of the metaphor is in 'The Efficient Human Machine', Scientific American (16 Oct 1915), 334.
The frying pan you should give to your enemy. Food should not be prepared in fat. Our bodies are adapted to a stone age diet of roots and vegetables.
— Denis Burkitt
The only way we are going to reduce disease, is to go backward to the diets and lifestyles of our ancestors.
— Denis Burkitt
Western doctors are like poor plumbers. They treat a splashing tube by cleaning up the water. These plumbers are extremely apt at drying up the water, constantly inventing new, expensive, and refined methods of drying up water. Somebody should teach them how to close the tap.
— Denis Burkitt
See also:
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
