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Patients rarely die of the disease from which they suffer. Secondary or terminal infections are the real cause of death.

William Osler

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William Osler
Age: 70 †
Born: 1849
Born: July 12
Died: 1919
Died: December 29
Physician
Professor
Sir William Osler
Sir William
WO
Suffering
Patients
Death
Rarely
Real
Suffer
Patient
Disease
Infections
Cause
Terminal
Causes
Infection
Dies
Secondary

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Nature, the great Moloch, which exacts a frightful tax of human blood, sparing neither young nor old taking the child from the cradle, the mother from her babe, and the father from the family.
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A well-trained, sensible doctor is one of the most valuable assets of a community.
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Half of us are blind, few of us feel, and we are all deaf.
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Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life, but will enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak-hearted and will console you in the sad hours.
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Humanity has but three great enemies: fever, famine, and war of these by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever.
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The Scots are the backbone of Canada. They are all right in their three vital parts - head, heart and haggis.
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We doctors have always been a simple trusting folk. Did we not believe Galen implicitly for 1500 years and Hippocrates for more than 2000?
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Gentlemen, I have a confession to make. Half of what we have taught you is in error, and furthermore we cannot tell you which half it is
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Shed, as you do your garments, your daily sins, whether of omission or commission, and you will wake a free man, with a new life.
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The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
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The great majority gave no signs one way or the other like birth, their death was a sleep and a forgetting.
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A library represents the mind of its collector, fancies and foibles, strengths and weaknesses, prejudices and preferences.
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There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.
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The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine.
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Shut out all of your past except that which will help you weather your tomorrows.
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To confess ignorance is often wiser than to beat about the bush with a hypothetical diagnosis.
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The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
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When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances will fit in with them.
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The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
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By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy-indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction.
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