William Osler: A Life in MedicineWilliam Osler was born in a parsonage in backwoods Canada on July 12, 1849. In a life lasting seventy years, he practiced, taught, and wrote about medicine at Canada's McGill University, America's Johns Hopkins University, and finally as Regius Professor at Oxford. At the time of his death in England in 1919, many considered him to be the greatest doctor in the world. Osler, who was a brilliant, innovative teacher and a scholar of the natural history of disease, revolutionized the art of practicing medicine at the bedside of his patients. He was idolized by two generations of medical students and practitioners for whom he came to personify the ideal doctor. But much more than a physician, Osler was a supremely intelligent humanist. In both his writings and his personal life, and through the prism of the tragedy of the Great War, he embodied the art of living. It was perhaps his legendary compassion that elevated his healing talents to an art form and attracted to his private practice students, colleagues, poets (Walt Whitman for example) politicians, royalty, and nameless ordinary people with extraordinary conditions. William Osler's life lucidly illuminates the times in which he lived. Indeed, this is a book not only about the evolution of modern medicine, the training of doctors, holism in medical thought, and the doctor-patient relationship, but also about humanism, Victorianism, the Great War, and much else. Meticulously researched, drawing on many new sources and offering new interpretations, William Osler: A Life in Medicine brings to life both a fascinating man and the formative age of twentieth-century medicine. It is a classic biography of a classic life, both authoritative and highly readable. |
Contents
The Baby Professor | |
Philadelphia | |
Starting at Johns Hopkins | |
We All Worship | |
The Great American Doctor | |
Leaving America | |
A Delightful Life and Place | |
Sir William | |
All the Youth and Glory of the Country | |
Never Use a Crutch 13 Oslers Afterlife | |
Notes and Sources | |
Acknowledgments | |
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Aequanimitas American autopsy Baltimore Barker became Bovell British Canada Canadian Church clinical clinicians CMSJ colleagues College CPOL Cushing’s death disease doctors Dr Osler Ellen England faculty father Featherstone Flexner friends Futcher gave Grace Halsted Harvey Cushing Howard Howard Kelly interest Jennette Osler Johns Hopkins Hospital Journal July knew later lectures letters living London Mall Malloch man’s Maude Abbott McCrae McGill medical school medical students medicine Montreal never Norham Gardens notes nurses OFPOA OPOL Osler Library Osler Memorial Osler wrote Oxford Papers pathology patients Philadelphia physician pneumonia practice profession professor regius Revere Revere’s seemed Sept Sir William Osler surgeon surgery surgical Susan Chapin talk teaching Thayer thought told Toronto tuberculosis typhoid fever University of Toronto wards Welch William Welch Willie women young