Sir William Osler (1849-1919) and neurology in his time.

Sir William Osler, physician in Montreal, in Pennsylvania, at Johns Hopkins and in England, promoted clinical medicine and its interpretation through clinical and pathological observation. He was a keen bibliophile and medical historian. He taught at the bedside and wrote a textbook that was a standard work in his time and for several decades after he died. As a generalist he practised the emerging speciality of neurology and knew many of the early clinicians in that field. The neurology of his time and his contributions to the subject are explored here.