Claude Bernard - Experimental Medicine

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But physicians have nothing to do with what is called the law of large numbers, a law which, according to a great mathematician's expression, is always true in general and false in particular.

Claude Bernard
Another very frequent application of mathematics to biology is the use of averages which, in medicine and physiology, leads, so to speak, necessarily to error... By destroying the biological character of phenomena, the use of averages in physiology and medicine usually give only apparent accuracy to the results.

Claude Bernard
We must not deceive ourselves: morals do not forbid making experiments on one's neighbour or one's self; in everyday life, men do nothing but experiment on one another.

Claude Bernard
The science of vital phenomena must have the same foundations as the science of phenomena of inorganic bodies, and... there is no difference in this respect between the principles of biological science and those of physico-chemical science.

Claude Bernard
Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of science will at last be built.

Claude Bernard
An experimenter can never deny a fact that he has seen and observed, merely because he cannot rediscover it.

Claude Bernard
It has often been said that, to make discoveries, one must be ignorant. This opinion, mistaken in itself, nevertheless conceals a truth. It means that it is better to know nothing than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them.

Claude Bernard
We may, of course strike a balance between what a living organism takes in as nourishment and what it gives out in excretions.... This would be like trying to tell what happens inside a house by watching what goes in by the door and what comes out by the chimney.

Claude Bernard
The application of mathematics to natural phenomena is the aim of all science.

Claude Bernard
Only within very narrow boundaries can man observe the phenomena which surround him; most of them naturally escape his senses, and mere observation is not enough.

Claude Bernard
The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.

Claude Bernard
In the patient who succumbed, the cause of death was evidently something which was not found in the patient who recovered; this something we must determine, and then we can act on the phenomena or recognize and foresee them accurately. But not by statistics shall we succeed in this; never have statistics taught anything, and never can they teach anything about the nature of the phenomenon.

Claude Bernard
The goal of scientific physicians in their own science... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.

Claude Bernard
In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations.

Claude Bernard
When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.

Claude Bernard
The spontaneity enjoyed by beings endowed with life has been one of the principal objections urged against the use of experimentation in biological studies.

Claude Bernard
There never are any unsuccessful experiments: they are all successful in their own definite conditions, so that negatives cannot nullify positive results.

Claude Bernard
Physiologists should not be afraid to act somewhat at random, so as to try - permit me the common expression - fishing in troubled waters. This amounts to saying that, in the midst of the functional disturbances which they produce, they may hope to see some unexpected phenomena emerge which may give direction to their research.

Claude Bernard
In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.

Claude Bernard
Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena; we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough.

Claude Bernard
Effects vary with the conditions which bring them to pass, but laws do not vary. Physiological and pathological states are ruled by the same forces; they differ only because of the special conditions under which the vital laws manifest themselves.

Claude Bernard
It seems, indeed, a necessary weakness of our mind to be able to reach truth only across a multitude of errors and obstacles.

Claude Bernard
If I had to define life in a single phrase, I should clearly express my thought of throwing into relief one characteristic which, in my opinion, sharply differentiates biological science. I should say: life is creation.

Claude Bernard
The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

Claude Bernard
True science suppresses nothing, but goes on searching and is undisturbed in looking straight at things that it does not yet understand.

Claude Bernard
By a marvellous compensation, science, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.

Claude Bernard
In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.

Claude Bernard
We must remain, in a word, in an intellectual disposition which seems paradoxical, but which, in my opinion, represents the true mind of the investigator. We must have a robust faith and yet not believe.

Claude Bernard
Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism.

Claude Bernard
A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words—'Art is myself; science is ourselves'.

Claude Bernard