Here are thirteen biographical sketches of physicians penned by one of the founders of modern medicine, William Osler, published in 1908. "Sir William Osler, one of the best-loved and most influential teachers of his time, was born in Canada in 1849…. Wherever he worked his gifted and unique personality was a center of inspiration… one would like to see his honorable place as a man of letters more generally understood. His generous wisdom and infectious enthusiasm are delightfully expressed in his collected writings…. His lucid and exquisite prose, with its extraordinary wealth of quotation from the literature of all ages, and his unfailing humor and tenderness, put him in the first rank of didactic essayists…. Rich in every gentle quality that makes life endeared, his books are the most sagacious and helpful of modern writings…" - Summary by Christopher Morley, Modern Essays, 1921, and David Wales