Key Takeaways:

• Holmes showcases a transitional era in medicine, where old remedies and dogmas are being tested and often demolished by emerging scientific method.
• He insists that skepticism toward fashionable treatments is an ethical duty; doing less can be better than doing harm with confident ignorance.
• The essays highlight medicine as a humanistic craft as well as a science, valuing clear thinking, good humor, and humility in the face of uncertainty.