WORDS FROM A GREAT MIND

William Osler

Physician, teacher & medical writer

Born: 12 July 1849
Died: 29 December 1919
Lived in: Ontario, Montreal, Philadelphia, Baltimore & Oxford

William Osler was a Canadian physician, teacher, and medical writer who helped reshape clinical education around learning at the patient’s bedside. He became one of the founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital and later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford.

A LESSER-KNOWN DETAIL

Osler was also an obsessive collector of medical books. His carefully described library became the Bibliotheca Osleriana at McGill University and remains a major collection in medical history.

Words by William Osler

“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business.”

William Osler ↗

“To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.”

William Osler ↗

“Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies.”

William Osler ↗