Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. ... The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard them from the consequences of their vices.
Interpretation
Hygiene intertwines with morality, often corrupting the true purpose of medicine, which is to protect from vices rather than impose virtue.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken critiques the conflation of hygiene with morality, suggesting that a focus on hygiene often implies a moral judgment about health that is not the core purpose of medicine. He argues that the true aim of medicine is to shield individuals from the negative impacts of their vices, not to enforce or dictate moral behavior, thus highlighting the tension between ethical beliefs and medical practices.
In practice
In a debate about public health policies, this quote can emphasize the difference between promoting hygiene and enforcing moral standards.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
I learnt that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I'm far more dangerous now, because I don't care at all.
Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.
She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel – that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.
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