Osler, Sir William, 1849-1919 Osler, Sir William, 1849-1919When Osler died in 1919, he was probably the most famous and beloved physician in the English-speaking and perhaps the whole world. He remains so more than 50 years later. His renown was not due to his contributions to science, which were small, or his contributions to medicine, though these were sizable. He adored and fascinated the young, and he transformed medical education in the United States and elsewhere. Before Osler, the relations between teacher and student, teacher and teacher, and teacher and patient had been cold and formal. After him, the relations were warm and friendly. He personified the learned, scholarly, skillful physician who was also a warm human being. Osler thought his epitaph should be that he took the teaching of medicine into the wards.
Sir William Bart OslerIn 1857, the family moved to Dundas, on the extreme western tip of Lake Ontario, halfway between Toronto and Niagara, where William attended the local grammar school. Though the son of a parson, he was highly spirited and he was expelled from his school after a number of incidents. This trait of Puckish humour was to remain with him, such that pomposity and detachment never intruded into his kindly words and advice.
Osler felt himself destined to be a clergyman, and departed for Toronto University, where he lived with a doctor, James Bovell. Bovell so influenced him that after a year, Osler gravitated towards medicine as his career. The influence was so profound that when Osler was distracted in the lecture-room, he would scribble in his note-books "James Bovell, M.D., M.R.C.P.," for his hero had cast a lifelong spell on him. The doodling of absent-mindedness was more likely to produce his idol's name than his own.
In 1870, Osler began his clinical work at the Montreal General Hospital, where he came under the influence of Robert Palmer Howard. Osler called Howard "an ideal teacher, because a student, ever alert to the new problems, an indomitable energy enabled him in the midst of an exacting practice to maintain an ardent enthusiasm, still to keep bright the fires he had lighted in his youth."
Osler was educated at Trinity College, Toronto, Toronto Medical School (entered 1868), and McGill University, where he received a medical degree in 1872. He identified platelets in the blood in 1873. In 1875 he was appointed professor at McGill Medical School and in 1878 as physician to the Montreal General Hospital. He was appointed professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University Medical in 1888 and as regius professor of medicine at Oxford University in 1904.
OSLER'S MESSAGE TO MEDICAL STUDENTS
OSLER'S MESSAGE TO THE PROFESSION
OSLER'S MESSAGE TO HIS FELLOWS
A small bottle containing urine sat upon the desk of Sir William Osler, the eminent professor of medicine at Oxford University. Sitting before him was a class full of young, wide-eyed medical students, listening to his lecture on the importance of observing details. To emphasize his point, he announced: "This bottle contains a sample for analysis. It's often possible by tasting it to determine the disease from which the patient suffers."
He then dipped a finger into the fluid and brought it into his mouth. He continued speaking: "Now I am going to pass the bottle around. Each of you please do exactly as I did. Perhaps we can learn the importance of this technique and diagnose the case."
The bottle made its way from row to row, each student gingerly poking his finger in and bravely sampling the contents with a frown. Dr. Osler then retrieved the bottle and startled his students by saying, "Gentlemen, now you will understand what I mean when I speak about details. Had you been observant, you would have seen that I put my index finger in the bottle but my middle finger into my mouth!"