Sir William Osier was a master clinician, renowned for his clinical method, attention to detail, and his diagnostic acumen. In Osier's era, infectious diseases were rampant and Osier had the opportunity to observe and write about many infectious diseases that he encountered at the time. In his famous Textbook of Medicine, published in 1892, pride of place goes to infectious diseases, and the infectious disease section begins with 39 pages devoted to typhoid fever. Because diagnostic tests available at the time were limited, Osier based his diagnoses on a careful analysis of the patient's febrile response and correlated that with the clinical findings to arrive at a diagnosis. Osier was able to correctly diagnose infectious diseases with similar presenting symptoms based on his careful analysis of the patients' fever curves. He was also careful to note the relationship of each patient's pulse to fever [1, 2].
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