The basic scientist in a clinical department is a relatively recent phenomenon in the long course of the development of academic medicine. It came about as a response to the enormous growth in medical and scientific knowledge in comparatively recent times, coupled with the relative inability of medically educated clinicians to use the conceptual tools and investigational methods that were being made available by modern chemistry and statistics. The juxtaposition of basic scientists and clinicians in a common environment produces tensions, but also rich dividends for both parties. Whatever ways medicine develops in the future, it seems unthinkable that it will be able to advance very far unless basic scientists and clinicians continue to work in collaboration, side by side.