{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/the-practical-basis", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/the-practical-basis.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/the-practical-basis.md", "id": "612c73d6-dc3e-4399-ac03-83f9461efedd", "slug": "the-practical-basis", "text": "The practical basis of the medical profession rested on psychology. Everyone felt better when self-confident, expensive experts could be called in to handle a vital emergency. Doctors relieved others of the responsibility for deciding what to do. As such, their role was strictly comparable to that of the priesthood, whose ministrations to the soul relieved anxieties parallel to those relieved by medical ministrations to the body.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William H. McNeill", "slug": "william-h-mcneill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill" }, "book": { "title": "Plagues and Peoples", "slug": "plagues-and-peoples", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "psychology", "slug": "psychology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/psychology" }, { "name": "doctors", "slug": "doctors", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doctors" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_H._McNeill#Plagues_and_Peoples_(1976)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:27", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "d4461b6b-3883-489c-bc1d-2bd79b4bd6ad", "slug": "looked-at-from", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/looked-at-from", "text": "Looked at from the point of view of other organisms, humankind resembles an acute epidemic disease, whose occasional lapses into less virulent forms of behavior have never yet sufficed to permit any really stable, chronic relationship to establish itself.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_H._McNeill#Plagues_and_Peoples_(1976)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:27" }, { "id": "50e9343a-c48b-415b-a990-3242503c608d", "slug": "ingenuity-knowledge-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/ingenuity-knowledge-and", "text": "Ingenuity, knowledge, and organization alter but cannot cancel humanity's vulnerability to invasion by parasitic forms of life. Infectious disease which antedated the emergence of humankind will last as long as humanity itself, and will surely remain, as it has been hitherto, one of the fundamental parameters and determinants of human history.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" }, { "name": "illness", "slug": "illness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_H._McNeill#Plagues_and_Peoples_(1976)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:27" }, { "id": "1d8ac20e-b632-4485-a425-81e1968bef00", "slug": "like-christianity-buddhism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/like-christianity-buddhism", "text": "Like Christianity, Buddhism explained suffering. In forms that established themselves in China, Buddhism offered the same sort of comfort to bereaved survivors and victims of violence or of disease as Christian faith did in the Roman world. Buddhism of course originated in India, where disease incidence was probably always very high as compared with civilizations based in cooler climates; Christianity, too, took shape in the urban environments of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria where the incidence of infectious disease was certainly very high as compared to conditions in cooler and less crowded places. From their inception, therefore, both faiths had to deal with sudden death by disease as one of the conspicuous facts of human life. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that both religions taught that death was a release from pain, and a blessed avenue of entry upon a delightful afterlife where loved ones would be reunited, and earthly injustices and pains amply compensated for.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" }, { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_H._McNeill#Plagues_and_Peoples_(1976)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:27" } ] }