
. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital
as the first Professor of Medicine and founder of the Medical Service there. (The "Big Four" were William Osler, Professor of Medicine; William Stewart Halsted
, Professor of Surgery; Howard A. Kelly, Professor of Gynecology; and William H. Welch
, Professor of Pathology.) Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training.
He has been called the "Father of modern medicine
." Osler was a pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker.
William's great grandfather, Edward Osler, was variously described as either a merchant seaman or a pirate, and one of William's uncles (Edward Osler 1798-1863), a medical officer in the Navy, wrote the Life of Lord Exmouth and the poem The Voyage. William Osler's father, Featherstone Lake Osler (1805–1895), the son of a shipowner at Falmouth, Cornwall
, was a former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and served on .
Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest, and not inferior to either in her mission.
When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.
We can only instill principles, put the student in the right path, give him method, teach him how to study, and early to discern between essentials and non-essentials.
To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.
Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.
Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital
as the first Professor of Medicine and founder of the Medical Service there. (The "Big Four" were William Osler, Professor of Medicine; William Stewart Halsted
, Professor of Surgery; Howard A. Kelly, Professor of Gynecology; and William H. Welch
, Professor of Pathology.) Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training.
He has been called the "Father of modern medicine
." Osler was a pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker.
Family
William's great grandfather, Edward Osler, was variously described as either a merchant seaman or a pirate, and one of William's uncles (Edward Osler 1798-1863), a medical officer in the Navy, wrote the Life of Lord Exmouth and the poem The Voyage. William Osler's father, Featherstone Lake Osler (1805–1895), the son of a shipowner at Falmouth, Cornwall, was a former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and served on . In 1831 Featherstone Osler was invited to serve on as the science officer on Charles Darwin
's historic voyage to the Galápagos Islands
, but he turned it down as his father was dying. As a teenager Featherstone Osler was aboard when it was nearly destroyed by Atlantic storms and left adrift for weeks. Serving in the Navy he was ship-wrecked off Barbados
. In 1837 Featherstone Osler retired from the Navy and emigrated to Canada
, becoming a 'saddle-bag minister' in rural Upper Canada
. When Featherstone Osler and his bride (Ellen Free Picton) arrived in Canada they were nearly ship-wrecked again on Egg Island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence
. The Oslers had several children and William was the brother of Britton Bath Osler
and Sir Edmund Boyd Osler
.
Early life
William Osler was born in Bond Head, Canada West (now Ontario) on July 12, 1849, and raised after 1857 in Dundas, Ontario
. (He was called William after William of Orange
, who won the Battle of the Boyne
on July 12, 1690.)
Educated at the original Trinity College School
in Weston Ontario, as a teenager William Osler's aim was to follow his father into the Anglican
ministry and to that end he entered Trinity College, Toronto
(now a constituent college of the University of Toronto
) in the autumn of 1867. However, his chief interest proved to be medicine and, forsaking his original intention, he enrolled in the Toronto School of Medicine. This was a proprietary, or privately owned institution, not to be confused with the Medical Faculty of the University of Toronto
, which was then not active as a teaching body. Osler left the Toronto School of Medicine after being accepted to the MDCM program at McGill University Faculty of Medicine
in Montreal
. He received his medical degree (MDCM) in 1872.
Career
Following post-graduate training in Europe, Osler returned to McGill University Faculty of Medicineas a professor in 1874. It is here that he created the first formalized journal club
. In 1884, he was appointed Chair of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia and in 1885, was one of the seven founding members of the Association of American Physicians
, a society dedicated to "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine." When he left Philadelphia in 1889, his farewell address Aequanimitas was on the equanimity necessary for physicians.
In 1889, he accepted the position as the first Physician-in-Chief of the new Johns Hopkins Hospital
in Baltimore, Maryland USA. Shortly afterwards, in 1893, Osler was instrumental in the creation of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and became one of the school's first professors in medicine. Osler quickly increased his reputation as a clinician, humanitarian and teacher. He presided over a rapidly expanding domain. In the Hospital's first year of operation, when it had 220 beds, 788 patients were seen for a total of over 15,000 days of treatment. Sixteen years later, when Osler left for Oxford, over 4,200 patients were seen for a total of nearly 110,000 days of treatment.
In 1905, he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Medicine at Oxford
, which he held until his death. He was also a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford
. During his time at Oxford, he met many aspiring doctors, a notable example being Wilder Penfield
.
In 1911, he initiated the Postgraduate Medical Association, of which he was the first President.
Osler was created a baronet
in the Coronation Honours List of 1911 for his many contributions to the field of medicine.
Contribution

. This latter idea spread across the English-speaking world and remains in place today in most teaching hospitals. Through this system, doctors in training make up much of a hospital's medical staff. The success of his residency system depended, in large part, on its pyramidal structure with many interns, fewer assistant residents and a single chief resident, who originally occupied that position for years. While at Hopkins Osler established the full-time, sleep-in residency system whereby staff physicians lived in the Administration Building of the Hospital. As established, the residency was open-ended, and long tenure was the rule. Doctors spent as long as seven or eight years as residents, during which time they led a restricted, almost monastic life.
He liked to say, "He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all." His best-known saying was "Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis," which emphasises the importance of taking a good history.
The contribution to medical education of which he was proudest was his idea of clinical clerkship — having third- and fourth-year students work with patients on the wards. He pioneered the practice of bedside teaching making rounds with a handful of students, demonstrating what one student referred to as his method of "incomparably thorough physical examination." Soon after arriving in Baltimore Osler insisted that his medical students attend at bedside early in their training: by their third year they were taking patient histories, performing physicals and doing lab tests examining secretions, blood and excreta.

lectures and once said he hoped his tombstone would say only, "He brought medical students into the wards for bedside teaching." He also said, "I desire no other epitaph … than the statement that I taught medical students in the wards, as I regard this as by far the most useful and important work I have been called upon to do." Osler fundamentally changed medical teaching in the North America, and this influence, helped by a few such as the Dutch internist
Dr. P.K. Pel, spread to medical schools across the globe.
Osler was a prolific author and a great collector of books and other material relevant to the history of medicine
. He willed his library to the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University
where it now forms the nucleus of McGill University's Osler Library of the History of Medicine
, which opened in 1929. The printed and extensively annotated catalogue of this donation is entitled "Bibliotheca Osleriana: a catalogue of books illustrating the history of medicine and science, collected, arranged and annotated by Sir William Osler, Bt. and bequeathed to McGill University". Osler was a strong supporter of libraries and served on the library committees at most of the universities at which he taught and was a member of the Board of Curators of the Bodleian Library
in Oxford. He was instrumental in founding the Medical Library Association
in North America and served as its second President from 1901-1904. In Britain he was the first (and only) President of the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland and also a President of the Bibliographical Society
of London (1913).
Osler was a prolific author and public speaker and his public speaking and writing were both done in a clear, lucid style. His most famous work, 'The Principles and Practice of Medicine'
quickly became a key text to students and clinicians alike. It continued to be published in many editions until 2001 and was translated into many languages. (See Osler Library Studies in the History of Medicine vol. 8.) It is notable in part for supporting the use of Bloodletting
as recently as 1923. Though his own textbook was a major influence in medicine for many years, Osler described Avicenna
as the 'author of the most famous medical textbook ever written.' He noted that Avicenna's Canon of Medicine remained 'a medical bible for a longer time than any other work.
Osler's essays were important guides to physicians. The title of his most famous essay, Aequanimitas, espousing the importance of imperturbability, is the motto on the Osler family crest and is used on the Osler housestaff tie and scarf at Hopkins.
Euthanasia
Osler is well known in the field of gerontology for the speech he gave when leaving Hopkins to become the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. His speech "The Fixed Period", given on 22 February 1905, included some controversial words about old age. Osler, who had a well-developed humorous side to his character, was in his mid-fifties when he gave the speech and in it he mentioned Anthony Trollope's The Fixed Period
(1882), which envisaged a College where men retired at 67 and after a contemplative period of a year were 'peacefully extinguished' by chloroform. He claimed that, "the effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty" and it was downhill from then on. Osler's speech was covered by the popular press which headlined their reports with "Osler recommends chloroform at sixty". The Fixed Period speech is included in the book of his collected addresses, "Aequanimitas, with other Addresses to Medical Students etc.")
Personal life
An inveterate prankster, he wrote several humorous pieces under the pseudonym "Egerton Yorrick Davis", even fooling the editors of the Philadelphia Medical News into publishing a report on the imaginary phenomenon of penis captivus, on December 13, 1884. The letter (still cited in all seriousness in a number of textbooks) was apparently a response to a report on the phenomenon of vaginismus
reported three weeks previously in the Philadelphia Medical News by Osler’s colleague Theophilus Parvin.
Davis, a prolific writer of letters to medical societies, purported to be a retired US Army surgeon living in Caughnawaga, Quebec
(now called Kahnawake), author of a controversial paper on the obstetrical habits of Native American
tribes which was suppressed and unpublished. Osler would enhance Davis' myth by signing Davis' name to hotel registers and medical conference
attendance lists; Davis was eventually reported drowned in the Lachine Rapids
in 1884.
Throughout his life, Osler was a great admirer of the 17th century physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne
.
He died at the age of 70, in 1919, during the Spanish influenza epidemic
; his wife, Grace, lived another nine years but succumbed to a series of strokes. Sir William and Lady Osler's ashes now rest in a niche within the Osler Library at McGill University
. They had two sons, one of whom died shortly after birth. The other, Edward Revere Osler, was mortally wounded in combat in World War I at the age of 21, during the 3rd battle of Ypres
(also known as the battle of Passchendaele). At the time of his death in August 1917, he was a Second Lieutenant in the (British) Royal Field Artillery; Lt. Osler's grave is in the Dozinghem Military Cemetery in West Flanders
, Belgium
. According to one biographer, Dr. Osler was emotionally crushed by the loss. Lady Osler (Grace Revere) was born in Boston in 1854; her paternal great-grandfather was Paul Revere
. In 1876, she married Samuel W. Gross, chairman of surgery at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Dr Gross died in 1889 and in 1892 she married William Osler who was then professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
In 1925, a monumental biography of William Osler was written by Harvey Cushing
. For this work, Cushing received the 1926 Pulitzer Prize
for biography. A later and somewhat more balanced biography by Michael Bliss
was published in 1999. In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
.
Eponyms
Osler lent his nameto a number of diseases, signs and symptoms, as well as having buildings named after him.
Conditions
- Osler's signOsler's signThe Osler's sign of pseudohypertension is an artificially and falsely elevated blood pressure reading obtained through sphygmomanometry due to arteriosclerotic, calcified blood vessels which do not physiologically compress with pressure....
is an artificially high systolic blood pressureBlood pressureBlood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels, and is one of the principal vital signs. When used without further specification, "blood pressure" usually refers to the arterial pressure of the systemic circulation. During each heartbeat, BP varies...
reading due to the calcification of atheroscleroticAtherosclerosisAtherosclerosis is a condition in which an artery wall thickens as a result of the accumulation of fatty materials such as cholesterol...
arteriesArteryArteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart. This blood is normally oxygenated, exceptions made for the pulmonary and umbilical arteries....
. - Osler's nodeOsler's nodeOsler's nodes are painful, red, raised lesions found on the hands and feet. They are associated with a number of conditions, including infective endocarditis, and are caused by immune complex deposition. They are named after Sir William Osler who described them in the early 20th century...
s are raised tender nodules on the pulps of fingertips or toes, an autoimmune vasculitis that is suggestive of subacute bacterial endocarditisEndocarditisEndocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves . Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or even on intracardiac devices...
. They are usually painful, as opposed to Janeway lesions which are due to emboli and are painless. - Rendu-Osler-Weber diseaseHereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasiaHereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia , also known as Osler-Weber-Rendu disease and Osler-Weber-Rendu syndrome, is a genetic disorder that leads to abnormal blood vessel formation in the skin, mucous membranes, and often in organs such as the lungs, liver and brain.It may lead to nosebleeds, acute...
(also known as hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia) is a syndrome of multiple vascularBlood vesselThe blood vessels are the part of the circulatory system that transports blood throughout the body. There are three major types of blood vessels: the arteries, which carry the blood away from the heart; the capillaries, which enable the actual exchange of water and chemicals between the blood and...
malformations on the skin, in the nasal and oral mucosa, in the lungs and elsewhere. - Osler-Vaquez disease (also known as PolycythemiaPolycythemiaPolycythemia is a disease state in which the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells increases...
vera) - Osler-Libman-Sacks syndrome is an atypical, verrucous, nonbacterial, valvular and mural endocarditisEndocarditisEndocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves . Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or even on intracardiac devices...
. Final stage of systemic lupus erythematosusLupus erythematosusLupus erythematosus is a category for a collection of diseases with similar underlying problems with immunity . Symptoms of these diseases can affect many different body systems, including joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, heart, and lungs...
. - Osler's filaria is a parasitic nematode.
- Osler's manoeuvre: In pseudohypertension, the blood pressure as measured by the sphygmomanometer is artificially high because of arterial wall calcification. Osler's manoeuvre takes a patient who has a palpable, although pulseless, radial artery while the blood pressure cuff is inflated above systolic pressure; thus they are considered to have "Osler's sign."
- Osler's syndrome is a syndrome of recurrent episodes of colic pain, with typical radiation to back, cold shiverings and fever; due to the presence in Vater’s diverticulum of a free-moving gallstone which is larger than the orifice.
- Osler's triad: association of pneumoniaPneumoniaPneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, endocarditisEndocarditisEndocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves . Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or even on intracardiac devices...
, and meningitisMeningitisMeningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
. - Sphryanura osleri is a trematode worm found in the gills of a newt.
Buildings
- Sir William Osler Elementary SchoolSir William Osler Elementary SchoolSir William Osler Elementary is a public elementary school in Vancouver, British Columbia, part of School District 39 Vancouver.- History :Sir William Osler Elementary is named after William Osler , a Canadian-born physician.- Programs :...
- Elementary School in Vancouver, British Columbia - Sir William Osler School - Elementary School in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- Sir William Osler Elementary SchoolSir William Osler Elementary School (Dundas)Sir William Osler Elementary School is an elementary school located in Dundas, Ontario, and is under the jurisdiction of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. It opened on November 13, 2007, and is directly across from Highland Secondary School. It was built to replace various elementary...
- HWDSBHamilton-Wentworth District School BoardHamilton-Wentworth District School Board is the public school board in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, which was formed January 1, 1997 via the amalgamation of the Hamilton and Wentworth County school boards. HWDSB teaches approximately 50,000 students in its 114 neighbourhood schools...
Elementary School in Dundas, OntarioDundas, OntarioDundas is a formerly independent town and now constituent community in the city of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. It's nickname is the Valley Town. The population has been stable for decades at about twenty thousand, largely because it has not annexed rural land from the protected Dundas Valley...
. - Sir William Osler High School, Toronto, Ontario
- Sir William Osler Public School Simcoe County District School BoardSimcoe County District School BoardSimcoe County District School Board, also known as SCDSB is one of Ontario's largest public school boards, serving Simcoe County. The schools and learning centres are dotted throughout 4,800 square kilometres in Simcoe County...
Elementary School in Bradford West Gwillimbury, OntarioBradford West Gwillimbury, OntarioBradford West Gwillimbury, a town in south-central Ontario, in the County of Simcoe in the Greater Toronto Area on the Holland River. West Gwillimbury takes its name from the family of Elizabeth Simcoe, née Gwillim....
and 3 kilometres away from his birth place, Bond Head, Ontario. - Osler Library of the History of MedicineOsler Library of the History of MedicineThe Osler Library, a branch of the McGill University Library, is Canada's foremost scholarly resource in the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America...
, McGill UniversityMcGill UniversityMohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, Montreal. Osler left his 8000 volume collection of books on the history of medicine to his alma mater. The library now holds over 100,000 volumes and is Canada's de facto 'national library of the history of medicine'. - Promenade Sir-William-Osler (Formerly the upper section of rue Drummond.) adjacent to the campus of McGill UniversityMcGill UniversityMohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in MontrealMontrealMontreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and leading to the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, which houses the Osler Library of the History of MedicineOsler Library of the History of MedicineThe Osler Library, a branch of the McGill University Library, is Canada's foremost scholarly resource in the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America...
. - William Osler Health System, was created in 1998 as a union of Peel Memorial HospitalPeel Memorial HospitalPeel Memorial Hospital was a 367-bed acute care hospital located in central Brampton, Ontario. PMH was founded in 1925 and became a part of the William Osler Health Centre in 1998. It previously served approximately 400,000 residents in Brampton and the surrounding areas...
, in Brampton, OntarioBrampton, OntarioBrampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada and the seat of Peel Region. As of the 2006 census, Brampton's population stood at 433,806, making it the 11th largest city in Canada. It is also one of Canada's fastest growing municipalities, with an average...
, Etobicoke General HospitalEtobicoke General HospitalThe Etobicoke General Hospital is a community hospital located at 101 Humber College Blvd in Toronto, Ontario, in the community of Etobicoke.-Overview:...
in TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Georgetown District Memorial Hospital which is now with Halton Health Care and the Brampton Civic Hospital which opened in late 2007. In 2011 it was described as "William Osler Health System is one of Canada's largest community hospital corporations serving the growing and diverse communities of Brampton, Etobicoke and surrounding areas in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Osler's hospitals include Etobicoke General, Brampton Civic and the soon-to-be redeveloped Peel Memorial which together provide a comprehensive range of acute care, ambulatory and ancillary health services." - Osler House is the student mess for clinical medical students of Oxford University and is found at the John Radcliffe HospitalJohn Radcliffe HospitalThe John Radcliffe Hospital is a large tertiary teaching hospital in Oxford, England.It is the main teaching hospital for Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University. As such, it is a well-developed centre of medical research. It also incorporates the Medical School of the University of Oxford....
in Oxford. - Osler House is one of the two undergraduate hostels of the prestigious medical school JIPMER, Pondicherry, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. - In 1999, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine created the Osler Textbook Room, in the room in the Billings Building where Osler wrote "Principles and Practice of Medicine". It houses a collection of Osler memorabilia.
- In 2002 the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine established the Osler Center for Clinical Excellence, devoted to teaching "the basic elements of a sound doctor patient relationship".
- Osler Hall is the name of the Dining Hall at Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ontario.
- Osler Hall is the Main Hall of "Med Chi" or Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, the Maryland State Medical Society, located on Cathedral Street in Baltimore Md. The Med Chi House of Delegates meets and deliberates in Osler Hall wherein hang numerous portraits of famous Maryland physicians including a large portrait of Sir William Osler MD
External links
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Osler Library, brief biography of William Osler
- Essays by William Osler at Quotidiana.org
- Aequanimitas from the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
- Biography on WhoNamedIt.com
- Biography from Osler House, Oxford, focusing on his Oxford years
- Osler House - Dundas - B&B, Meetings, Celebrations, Receptions, Retreats
- Ontario Plaques — Sir William Osler
- http://www.gtc.ox.ac.uk/about-gtc/osler-mcgovern-centre.html at 13 Norham GardensNorham GardensNorham Gardens is a residential road in central north Oxford, England. It adjoins the north end of Parks Road near the junction with Banbury Road. From here it skirts the north side of the Oxford University Parks, ending up at Lady Margaret Hall, a college of Oxford University that was formerly for...
, owned by Sir William Osler while Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University (information from Green Templeton College, OxfordGreen Templeton College, OxfordGreen Templeton College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is the university's newest college having come into existence on 1 October 2008 from the merger of Green College and Templeton College...
) - Osler House Club, Oxford University
- The American Osler Society
- The Osler Club of London
- Osler biography, chronology, bibliography & resources (from Johns HopkinsJohns Hopkins HospitalThe Johns Hopkins Hospital is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland . It was founded using money from a bequest by philanthropist Johns Hopkins...
) - Systemofmedicine.com, Oslerian medical education resource
- William Osler Health Centre
- William Osler Photo Collection of McGill University Library