Wednesday 8 February 2012: Ars longa vita brevis

I was out in the sunshine this morning, walking back to the office, when I remembered to take a photo of this clock in the old medical quad at the university. It's high up off the ground, but I was able to use the zoom on my camera phone to bring it closer.

This made it easier to read the Latin words at the base: Ars longa vita brevis. According to Phrasefinder , this is a translation into Latin of part of a quotation by the Greek 'Father of Medicine' - Hippocrates. This seems to me appropriate for a clock near the entrance to the old Medical School. Here's more from Phrasefinder:

The full quotation in Latin is

"Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile."

... 'it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's expertise (in, say, medicine) and one has but a short time in which to do it'.

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