Claude Bernard Quotes


When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.


Citations

Bernard, Claude. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Translated by Henry Copley Greene, Macmillan, 1927, p. 135.

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Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard
  • Born: July 12, 1813
  • Died: February 10, 1878
  • Nationality: French
  • Profession: Scientist

Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". Among many other accomplishments, he was one of the first to suggest the use of a blinded experiment to ensure the objectivity of scientific observations. He originated the term milieu intérieur, and the associated concept of homeostasis (the latter term being coined by Walter Cannon).