If you're going to administer painful medicine, then it's better to do so decisively and all in one dose than to revise and renegotiate down the road.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: Europe's Hotel California

Weaning a people away from a 50-year diet of socialism and populism can be a painful business, and many politicians are reluctant to administer the bitter medicine of reform for fear that voters might turn against them.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | South Asian of the Year: Chandrababu Naidu

Meanwhile, he moves slowly, and with minimal fanfare, to privatise state assets, to squeeze the public payroll, to curb the trade unions and generally to administer the sort of liberal medicine South Africa needs.

ECONOMIST: South Africa goes for growth | The

The second question is whether the economy can take Mr Osborne's strong medicine if he can, in fact, administer it.

ECONOMIST: Britain's budget

The medicine for these ills is simple to prescribe, but painfully hard to administer: structural reforms to deregulate labour and product markets.

ECONOMIST: The European Central Bank

Someday a new style of individualized medicine will let doctors analyze the DNA in a patient's tumor, then administer customized cocktails of drugs designed to attack that tumor's particular genetic defects.

FORBES: Conquering Cancer