William Osler
Overview
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a physician
. 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 .
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The 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...
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
William Stewart Halsted
William Stewart Halsted was an American surgeon who emphasized strict aseptic technique during surgical procedures, was an early champion of newly discovered anesthetics, and introduced several new operations, including the radical mastectomy for breast cancer...
, Professor of Surgery; Howard A. Kelly, Professor of Gynecology; and William H. Welch
William H. Welch
William Henry Welch, M.D. was an American physician, pathologist, and medical school administrator. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. William Henry Welch, M.D. (April 8, 1850 - April 30, 1934) was an American physician, pathologist, and medical school...
, 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
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
." 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
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
, was a former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and served on .
Quotations
Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
"Teaching and Thinking" in The Montreal Medical Journal (1895)
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.
Address at John Hopkins Hospital (1897); later published in Aequanimitas, and Other Addresses (1905)
When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.
"Internal Medicine as a Vocation" Address to the New York Academy of Medicine (1897); later published in Aequanimitas, and Other Addresses (1905)
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.
"After Twenty Five Years", an address at McGill College, Montreal (1899); later published in Aequanimitas : With other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine (1910), p. 210
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.
"Books and Men" in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1901)
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.
"The Student Life" in The Medical News (30 September 1905)
Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.
As quoted in The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957) by Rudolf Franz Flesch, p. 122
Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
As quoted in Computers in biomedical research (1965) by Ralph W. Stacy, p. 320
The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
As quoted in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 575
Encyclopedia
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a physician
. 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.
, 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
.
) 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.
as 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.
Perhaps Osler's greatest contribution to medicine was to insist that students learn from seeing and talking to patients and the establishment of the medical residency
. 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.
He reduced the role of didactic
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.
'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.")
, 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
.
to a number of diseases, signs and symptoms, as well as having buildings named after him.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The 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...
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
William Stewart Halsted
William Stewart Halsted was an American surgeon who emphasized strict aseptic technique during surgical procedures, was an early champion of newly discovered anesthetics, and introduced several new operations, including the radical mastectomy for breast cancer...
, Professor of Surgery; Howard A. Kelly, Professor of Gynecology; and William H. Welch
William H. Welch
William Henry Welch, M.D. was an American physician, pathologist, and medical school administrator. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. William Henry Welch, M.D. (April 8, 1850 - April 30, 1934) was an American physician, pathologist, and medical school...
, 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
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
." 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, CornwallFalmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
, 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
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's historic voyage to the Galápagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
, 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
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
. In 1837 Featherstone Osler retired from the Navy and emigrated to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, becoming a 'saddle-bag minister' in rural Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
. 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
Gulf of Saint Lawrence
The Gulf of Saint Lawrence , the world's largest estuary, is the outlet of North America's Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean...
. The Oslers had several children and William was the brother of Britton Bath Osler
Britton Bath Osler
Britton Bath Osler was a Canadian lawyer and prosecutor.The older of three famous brothers , he was born in Bond Head, Canada West. His father, Featherstone Lake Osler , the son of a shipowner at Falmouth, Cornwall, was a former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and served on H.M.S...
and Sir Edmund Boyd Osler
Edmund Boyd Osler (Ontario politician)
Sir Edmund Boyd Osler was a Canadian banker and politician.Osler was born at Tecumseh Township, Simcoe County, Canada West; he was brother of Britton Bath Osler , and doctor Sir William Osler...
.
Early life
William Osler was born in Bond Head, Canada West (now OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
) on July 12, 1849, and raised after 1857 in Dundas, Ontario
Dundas, Ontario
Dundas 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...
. (He was called William after William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
, who won the Battle of the Boyne
Battle of the Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thronesthe Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland...
on July 12, 1690.)
Educated at the original Trinity College School
Trinity College School
Trinity College School is a coeducational, independent boarding/day school located in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. TCS was founded on May 1, 1865, more than 2 years prior to Canadian Confederation. It includes a Senior School for grades 9 to 12 and a Junior School for grades 5 to 8.Among its...
in Weston Ontario, as a teenager William Osler's aim was to follow his father into the Anglican
Anglican Church of Canada
The Anglican Church of Canada is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada. The ACC is the third largest church in Canada after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, consisting of 800,000 registered members...
ministry and to that end he entered Trinity College, Toronto
University of Trinity College
The University of Trinity College, informally referred to as Trin, is a college of the University of Toronto, founded in 1851 by Bishop John Strachan. Trinity was intended by Strachan as a college of strong Anglican alignment, after the University of Toronto severed its ties with the Church of...
(now a constituent college of the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
) 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
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, 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
McGill University Faculty of Medicine
The Faculty of Medicine is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1823 as the Montreal Medical Institution, and became the first faculty of McGill College in 1829; it was the first medical faculty to be established in Canada....
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal 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...
. He received his medical degree (MDCM) in 1872.
Career
Following post-graduate training in Europe, Osler returned to McGill University Faculty of MedicineMcGill University Faculty of Medicine
The Faculty of Medicine is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1823 as the Montreal Medical Institution, and became the first faculty of McGill College in 1829; it was the first medical faculty to be established in Canada....
as a professor in 1874. It is here that he created the first formalized journal club
Journal club
A journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in scientific literature. Journal clubs are usually organized around a defined subject in basic or applied research. For example, the application of evidence-based medicine to some area of medical...
. In 1884, he was appointed Chair of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in Philadelphia and in 1885, was one of the seven founding members of the Association of American Physicians
Association of American Physicians
The Association of American Physicians is a medical society founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era, for "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine." Election to the AAP is an honor extended to individuals with...
, 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
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The 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...
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
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, which he held until his death. He was also a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. During his time at Oxford, he met many aspiring doctors, a notable example being Wilder Penfield
Wilder Penfield
Wilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...
.
In 1911, he initiated the Postgraduate Medical Association, of which he was the first President.
Osler was created a baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
in the Coronation Honours List of 1911 for his many contributions to the field of medicine.
Contribution
Residency (medicine)
Residency is a stage of graduate medical training. A resident physician or resident is a person who has received a medical degree , Podiatric degree , Dental Degree and who practices...
. 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.
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
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
Internal medicine
Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists. They are especially skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes...
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
History of medicine
All human societies have medical beliefs that provide explanations for birth, death, and disease. Throughout history, illness has been attributed to witchcraft, demons, astral influence, or the will of the gods...
. He willed his library to the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed 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...
where it now forms the nucleus of McGill University's Osler Library of the History of Medicine
Osler Library of the History of Medicine
The 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...
, 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
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
in Oxford. He was instrumental in founding the Medical Library Association
Medical Library Association
The Medical Library Association is a nonprofit, educational organization with more than 4,000 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide.- History :...
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
Bibliographical Society
Founded in 1892, the Bibliographical Society is the senior learned society dealing with the study of the book and its history, based in London, England....
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'
The Principles and Practice of Medicine
The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Designed for the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine is a medical textbook by Sir William Osler. It was first published in 1892 while Osler was Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. It established Osler as the world's leading authority...
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
Bloodletting
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of often little quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluid were considered to be "humors" the proper balance of which maintained health...
as recently as 1923. Though his own textbook was a major influence in medicine for many years, Osler described Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
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 TrollopeAnthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
's The Fixed Period
The Fixed Period
The Fixed Period is a satirical dystopian novel by Anthony Trollope.-Introduction:It was first published in six instalments in Blackwood's Magazine in 1881-82 and in book form in 1882. In the same year there also appeared U.S. and Tauchnitz editions of the novel. There were no further editions...
(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 captivusPenis captivus
Penis captivus describes a supposed event that occurs in rare instances during heterosexual intercourse when the muscles in the vagina clamp down on the penis much more firmly than usual , making it impossible for the penis to withdraw from the vagina...
, 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
Vaginismus
Vaginismus, sometimes anglicized vaginism, is the German name for a condition which affects a woman's ability to engage in any form of vaginal penetration, including sexual intercourse, insertion of tampons and/or menstrual cups, and the penetration involved in gynecological examinations...
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
Quebec
Quebec 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....
(now called Kahnawake), author of a controversial paper on the obstetrical habits of Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
tribes which was suppressed and unpublished. Osler would enhance Davis' myth by signing Davis' name to hotel registers and medical conference
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
attendance lists; Davis was eventually reported drowned in the Lachine Rapids
Lachine Rapids
The Lachine Rapids are a series of rapids on the Saint Lawrence River, between the Island of Montreal and the south shore. They are located near the former city of Lachine....
in 1884.
Throughout his life, Osler was a great admirer of the 17th century physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
.
He died at the age of 70, in 1919, during the Spanish influenza epidemic
Spanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
; 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
McGill University
Mohammed 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...
. 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
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
(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
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. 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
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
. 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
Harvey Cushing
Harvey Williams Cushing, M.D. , was an American neurosurgeon and a pioneer of brain surgery, and the first to describe Cushing's syndrome...
. For this work, Cushing received the 1926 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for biography. A later and somewhat more balanced biography by Michael Bliss
Michael Bliss
John William Michael Bliss, CM, FRSC is a Canadian historian and award-winning author. Though his early works focused on business and political history, he has written several important medical biographies, including of Sir William Osler...
was published in 1999. In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame is a Canadian charitable organization, founded in 1994, that honours Canadians who have contributed to the understanding of disease and improving the health of people. It has a museum in London, Ontario, and has an annual induction ceremony.-2012:*Terry Fox*John...
.
Eponyms
Osler lent his nameEponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
to 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