William Osler

The first is undoubtedly the note of humanity.

Where there is love of humanity there will be love of the profession."

Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine ought to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition; instruction; a favourable position for the study; early tuition; love of labour; leisure.

are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance"?

The second great note in Greek medicine illustrates the directness with which they went to the very heart of the matter.

Praxagoras was one of the first to make an exhaustive study of the pulse, and he must have been a man of considerable clinical acumen, as well as boldness, to recommend in obstruction of the bowels the opening of the abdomen, removal of the obstructed portion and uniting the ends of the intestine by sutures.

Called to see a lady he found her suffering from general malaise without any fever or increased action of the pulse. He saw at once that her trouble was mental and, like a wise physician, engaged her in general conversation. Quite possibly he knew her story, for the name of a certain actor, Pylades, was mentioned, and he noticed that her pulse at once increased in rapidity and became irregular. On the next day he arranged that the name of another actor, Morphus, should be mentioned, and on the third day the experiment was repeated but without effect. Then on the fourth evening it was again mentioned that Pylades was dancing, and the pulse quickened and became irregular, so he concluded that she was in love with Pylades.

yet to speake a truth, there are no lies dearer sold or more daungerous than those which proceed out of a Physician's mouth.

may remember that through the errors of Praxagoras and Erasistratus, the arteries were believed to contain air and got their name on that account: Galen showed by experiment that the arteries contain blood and not air.

is difficult to understand how Galen missed the circulation of the blood. He knew that the valves of the heart determined the direction of the blood that entered and left the organ, but he did not appreciate that it was a pump for distributing the blood, regarding it rather as a fireplace from which the innate heat of the body was derived.