Abstract
William Osler was a mentor for the younger William Harvey Cushing and they intermingled careers and friendship for the rest of their lives. They shared a common interest in the anatomy and pathology of neurological disorders, and in the history of medicine. Their behavior was, however, sharply different: Osler was the revered physician, full of wisdom and good humor, and Cushing, the prestigious surgeon, in a perennial and successful struggle to improve neurosurgery and himself. Both became medical icons, one beloved, and the other admired, each praised at their death centennial and 150 birth anniversary, respectively.