People believed we were somewhat eccentric.

The 20th-century ulcer epidemic was a sign of good health in American people - good diet, strong acidity and healthy immune response actually make ulcers more likely. That's why businessmen eating giant T-bone steaks were prone to ulcers.

Everything that's supposedly caused by stress, I tell people there's a Nobel Prize there if you find out the real cause.

My mother was a nurse, and in her era, most diseases weren't understood; people put mustard plasters on knees and rubbed camphor on your chest if you had a cough and did funny things to you if you had tuberculosis - all these things that really made very little difference once proper treatments were brought in.

The politics have always been difficult in medicine. There is some truth in the way medical practice is portrayed in TV dramas.

You can always find stress in someone's life if you want to. You ask a few questions, and eventually, it's, 'Yes, I admit, I was worried about something recently.'