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 HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD 
 
 HX00077097 
 
 WILLIAM OSLER 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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A snapshot of Sir William Osier taken in the Bodleian Library in 1909, holding 
 open Sir William Stirling-Maxwell's copy of Vesal's Tabulae Anatomicae. 
 
WILLIAM OSLER, THE MAN 1 
 By HARVEY CUSHING 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 WHATEVER may be said of 
 Sir William Osier in days 
 to come, of his high posi- 
 tion in medicine, of his 
 gifts and versatility, to his contemporaries, 
 love of his fellow-man, utter unselfishness, 
 and an extraordinary capacity for friend- 
 ship will always remain the characteristics 
 which overshadow all else. Few so eminent 
 and so industrious come in return to be so 
 widely beloved for their own sake. Most of 
 us do well with what Stevenson advises — a 
 few friends and those without capitulation 
 — but Osier had the God-given quality not 
 only of being a friend with all, high or low, 
 child or grown-up, professor or pupil, don 
 or scholar, but what is more, of holding such 
 friendships with an unforgetting tenacity — 
 a scribbled line of remembrance with a 
 playful twist to it, a note of congratulation 
 to some delighted youngster on his first 
 publication, the gift of an unexpected book, 
 an unsolicited donation for some worthy 
 cause (and giving promptly he gave doub- 
 ly), a telegram to bring cheer or consolation, 
 an article to help a Struggling journal to get 
 a footing, a cable such as his last on the day 
 of his operation to his old Hopkins friends, 
 which was given by them to the press for 
 
 'An amplification ofa note on sir William Osier * bich appc ired 
 
 anonymously in tlu- Boston I unnu- T ra n$ o ip t, January 3, i';j<>. 
 
 1 
 
the benefit of countless others who shared 
 their own anxiety — all this was character- 
 istic of the man, whose first thoughts were 
 invariably for others. 
 
 He gave much of himself to all, and 
 everyone fortunate enough to have been 
 brought in contact with him shared from 
 the beginning in the universal feeling of 
 devotion all had for him. This was true of 
 his patients, as might be expected, and he 
 was sought far and wide not only because 
 of his wide knowledge of medicine and great 
 wisdom, but because of his generosity, sym- 
 pathy and great personal charm. It was 
 true also — and this is more rare — of the 
 members of his profession, for whom, high or 
 low, he showed a spirit of brotherly helpful- 
 ness untinctured by those petty jealousies 
 which sometimes mar these relationships. 
 "Never believe what a patient may tell you 
 to the detriment of another physician" was 
 one of his sayings to students, and then he 
 would add with a characteristic twist — 
 "even though you may fear it is true"; 
 and he was preeminently the physician to 
 physicians and their families, and would go 
 out of his way unsolicited and unsparingly 
 to help them when he learned that they were 
 ill or in distress of any kind. And no one 
 could administer encouragement, the essen- 
 tial factor in the art of psychotherapy in 
 which he was past master, or could "soothe 
 the heartache of any pessimistic brother," 
 so effectively and with so little expenditure 
 of time as could he. 
 
 During one of his flying trips to America 
 2 
 
some years ago, as always with engagements 
 innumerable, he took time to go from Balti- 
 more to Boston for the single purpose of 
 seeing a surgical friend with literary tastes 
 who for some months had been bed-fast 
 with a decompensated heart; and James 
 Mumford, for it was he, always said that 
 this unannounced visit was what put him 
 on his feet again. I knew of his doing the 
 same thing for an Edinburgh physician of 
 whose illness he heard by chance just as he 
 was leaving the steamer, in Liverpool. He 
 was due for an address before the British 
 Medical Association in Oxford, but without 
 hesitation he took the first tram to the 
 north and managed to get back to Oxford 
 just in time for the address, blithe and gay 
 as though he had not spent two nights on a 
 train. Indeed he was invariably punctual 
 and somewhat intolerant of tardiness in 
 others. "Punctuality is the prime essential 
 of a physician — if invariably on time he will 
 succeed even in the face of professional 
 mediocrity." 
 
 The universal devotion he engendered 
 was no less true of those with whom lie 
 came in contact outside his profession, and 
 his points of contact through his varied 
 interests were innumerable. Man, woman or 
 child — and in children I !v he de- 
 
 lighted as they did in him fell from the 
 firsi momenl of meeting a rare fascination 
 in his personality. In a poem, "Books and 
 the M.ip." dedicated to Osier and i 
 before the Charaka Club, March .}. i 
 Weir Mitchell recalls in these three \< 
 
their first meeting in London twenty years 
 before. 
 
 Do you perchance recall when first we met — 
 And gaily winged with thought the flying night 
 And won with ease the friendship of the mind, — 
 I like to call it friendship at first sight. 
 
 And then you found with us a second home, 
 And, in the practice of life's happiest art 
 You little guessed how readily you won 
 The added friendship of the open heart. 
 
 And now a score of years has fled away 
 In noble service of life's highest ends, 
 And my glad capture of a London night 
 Disputes with me a continent of friends. 
 
 On Osier's seventieth birthday, just 
 passed, the medical world set out to do him 
 honor — unknown to him, for he was one to 
 elude public testimonials and did not suffer 
 adulation gladly, quick as he was to give 
 praise to others. For this occasion many of 
 his former pupils and colleagues in Balti- 
 more wrote a number of papers containing 
 the sort of things rarely said or written 
 about a man or his work until after his 
 death. Among these papers is one by his 
 present successor there, on "Osier the 
 Teacher" which deserves quoting in full, 
 but which after an enunciation of his traits 
 ends with this picture of the man as his 
 hospital associates and students remember 
 him. 
 
 If you can practice consistently all this, . . . 
 and then, if you can bring into corridor and ward 
 a light, springing step, a kindly glance, a bright 
 word to everyone you meet, arm passed within 
 arm or thrown over the shoulder of the happy 
 4 
 
student or colleague; a quick, droll, epigrammatic 
 question, observation or appellation that puts the 
 patient at his ease or brings a pleased blush to the 
 face of the nurse; an apprehension that grasps in a 
 minute the kernel of the situation, and a memory 
 teeming with instances and examples that throw 
 light on the question; an unusual power of suc- 
 cinct statement and picturesque expression, exer- 
 cised quietly, modestly and wholly without 
 sensation; if you can bring into the lecture-room 
 an air of perfect simplicity and directness, and, 
 behind it all, have an ever-ready store of the most- 
 apt and sometimes surprising interjections that 
 so light up and emphasize that which you are 
 setting forth that no one in the room can forget 
 it; if you can enter the sick-room with a song and 
 an epigram, an air of gaiety, an atmosphere that 
 lifts the invalid instantly out of his ills, that pro- 
 duces in the waiting hypochondriac so pleasing a 
 confusion of thought that the written list of ques- 
 tions and complaints, carefully complied and 
 treasured for the moment of the visit, is almost 
 invariably forgotten; if the joy of your visit can 
 make half a ward forget the symptoms that it 
 Jancied were important, until you are gone; if you 
 can truly love your fellow and, having said evil of 
 no man, be loved by all; if you can select a wife 
 with a heart as big as your own, whose generous 
 welcome makes your tea-table a Mecca; ... if 
 you can do all this, you may begin to be to others 
 the teacher that "the chief" is to us. 
 
 Little wonder that he was idolized by the 
 students. This was natural enough, bill lie 
 in turn took pains to know them by name, 
 gave up an evening in each week to bug 
 sivr groups of them ;it Ins home, learned 
 them as individuals and never forgot them. 
 And it was the same with his hospital 
 
 juniors, whether they happened to be mem- 
 bers of his own staff or nol . I } i i 
 
some papers I find this characteristic un- 
 dated note of circa 1898, concerning an 
 early effort which had been submitted to 
 him. It is scribbled in pencil on a bit of paper. 
 
 A. A. 1. report! I have added a brief note about 
 the diagnoses. I would mention in the medical re- 
 port the name of the House Physician in Ward 
 E & the din. clerk, & under the surgical report the 
 name of the House Surgeon who had charge. We 
 are not nearly particular enough in this respect 
 and should follow the good old Scotch custom. 
 Yours, W. O. 
 
 This habit of giving credit to everyone who 
 may have been brought into contact with a 
 case was most characteristic of the man. 
 Even his "Text-Book of Medicine" con- 
 tains so many references to places and 
 people that it led to these amusing verses 
 taken from a long poem by a student which 
 appeared in the Guy's Hospital Gazette some 
 years ago : 
 
 For why should it matter to usward, 
 
 If Osborn has sent you a screed, 
 
 Or why have you sought a brief mention of Porter, 
 
 Or Barker, or Caton, or Reed? 
 
 I sometimes am seized with a yearning, 
 
 In Appleton's ledger to look, 
 
 What fun it would be if we only could see 
 
 Whether each of them purchased the book! 
 
 But when of the names we are weary 
 (Directories muddle the brain), 
 We're provided by you with philosophy too 
 In the trite Aphorisms of Cheyne. 
 Geography also you teach us, 
 Until I came under your thrall, 
 I don't mind confessing that Conoquenessing 
 I never had heard of at all. 
 
 6 
 
But with all his abundant learning, his 
 high spirits, his playful wit and love of a 
 practical joke, he was incapable of offending. 
 "If you can't see good in people see noth- 
 ing." Charitable to a degree of others' 
 foibles, even when he had to oppose or to 
 fight in public for a principle he did so with- 
 out leaving hurt feelings. This lay at the 
 bottom of the great influence he exercised 
 and the universal admiration felt for his 
 character. 
 
 Probably no physician during his life has 
 been so much quoted nor so much written 
 about, and the chief periods of Osier's 
 eventful and migratory career are too well 
 known to need more than brief mention. 
 
 His father, a clergyman, Featherstone 
 Lake Osier, with his wife, Ellen Pickton, left 
 Falmouth, England, in 1837 and settled in 
 the Province of Ontario. William, the eighth 
 of their nine children, several of whom have 
 become highly distinguished in Canadian 
 affairs and in the law, was born July 12, 
 1849, at Bond Head. A graduate of Trinity 
 College, Toronto, in 1868, he took his 
 medical degree four years later at McGill 
 University; then after two years of study 
 abroad, returning to Montreal in 1874, he 
 leapt into prominence as the newly ap- 
 pointed Professor of the Institutes of Medi- 
 cine of his alma mater. A professor at 
 twenty-five, in a chair which covered the 
 teaching of pathology and physiology! And 
 there followed ten years of active scientific 
 
 work which laid 1 he foundation lor his 
 
 subsequent eminence in his profession* 
 
In 1884 he accepted a position in the 
 University of Pennsylvania, and five years 
 later was called to Baltimore as Professor 
 of Medicine in the newly established Johns 
 Hopkins Medical School. There, marrying 
 in 1892 Grace Revere, the widow of Dr. S. 
 W. Gross of Philadelphia, he remained for 
 sixteen years. It was the Golden Age of the 
 Johns Hopkins during the presidency of 
 Daniel C. Gilman, and during this period 
 through his writing and teaching Osier 
 became recognized, one may say without 
 exaggeration, as the most eminent and 
 widely influential physician of his time. 
 
 Many calls to other positions during these 
 years met with refusal until in 1904, when 
 fifty-six years of age, he accepted the Regius 
 Professorship of Physic at Oxford, the most 
 honored post in medicine that the United 
 Kingdom can offer. Though this position on 
 a royal foundation centuries old (Henry 
 VIII, 1546) is a sinecure and was doubtless 
 accepted to give leisure for literary pur- 
 suits, he was not one to take advantage of 
 ease. The succeeding fifteen years in Oxford 
 represent, if possible, a period of even 
 greater activity and more far-reaching influ- 
 ence in many directions than the fifteen 
 years at the Johns Hopkins, where despite 
 his absence his stimulating spirit of work 
 for work's sake still reigns. 
 
 Established in a delightful home where 
 he and Lady Osier continued to dispense 
 their unbounded hospitality, so much so 
 that 13 Norham Gardens came to be known 
 as the "Open Arms," elected a Fellow of 
 
Christ Church, Woolsey's College, put upon 
 the Hebdomadal Council, a small body 
 which takes the initiative in promulgating 
 all the legislature of the University before 
 its submission to Convocation, he was soon 
 appointed one of the curators of the Bod- 
 leian Library, and elected a Delegate of the 
 University Press. There can be no doubt 
 but that these latter positions gave him his 
 greatest extra-professional pleasure and sat- 
 isfaction during his Oxford life, and to the 
 Library and the Press he gave largely of his 
 time. 
 
 But Oxford, with its hoary traditions, its 
 strict adherence to the humanities, its com- 
 fortable spirit of laissez jaire, had drawn 
 into its net a restless spirit who knew the 
 modern outside world, and he was responsi- 
 ble for such changes even in the established 
 procedures of the Bodleian as were thought 
 impossible of accomplishment, if indeed 
 modern library methods were really desir- 
 able. But a man, particularly when ener- 
 getic, unselfish and likeable, who could talk 
 Aristotelian philosophy with the dons at the 
 high tabic- and at tin- same time knew 
 science and the value of [aboratorie 
 well as libraries, could not but leave his 
 impression on the ten centuries, more 01 
 
 [( of Oxford's habits and customs. 
 
 There were, indeed, many Osiers: the 
 physician, the professor, the scholar, the 
 author, the- bibliophile, the historian, the 
 philanthropist, the friend and companion 
 f« i young <>r old. Though no man loved his 
 
 home mure nor kept its doors more widely 
 
open to the world, he was in demand every- 
 where, and was eminently clubable. Few 
 dinners, of the Samuel Pepys Club, the 
 Roxburghe or the Colophon Clubs, of the 
 inner circle of the Royal Society, of his 
 college, failed to be enlivened by his pres- 
 ence, and he had just been made a member 
 of the famous Johnson Club, one of the 
 oldest and most select dining clubs in 
 existence. 
 
 His Oxford home, even more than in 
 Baltimore, had become such a gathering 
 place, particularly for Canadians and Ameri- 
 cans, that how the scholar did his work 
 was a mystification to many. An omniverous 
 reader with a most retentive memory, pos- 
 sessed of a rare literary gift and with the 
 power of immediately concentrating on the 
 thing which was to be done, no matter what 
 had occupied his attention the moment 
 before or was laid out to be done the 
 moment after — these were probably the ele- 
 ments of his great productivity. 
 
 With it all he was a writer par excellence 
 of countless brief missives — even the frag- 
 ment pencilled on a postcard during his 
 outings and sent to an unexpecting friend 
 whom some incident had led him to recall, 
 invariably contained some characteristic 
 message, quip or epigram worth preserving. 
 During a brief sojourn in Paris in the winter 
 of 1908-9, he writes: 
 
 I've just been going through the Servetus Trial 
 
 for Astrology, 1537. 'Tis given in full in du Bou- 
 
 Iay's History of the University of Paris. I wish you 
 
 could see this library. I've wasted hours browsing. 
 
 10 
 
Meanwhile I've read through six volumes of 
 Swinburne. I did not know before of his Children's 
 Poems. We are off on the 13th, first to Lyons to 
 see Symphorien Champier and Rabelais. We'll 
 stop at Vienne to call on Servetus and Appolos 
 Revoire, doubtless the father of the late Paul 
 Revere. 
 
 He subsequently went down into Italy, 
 and some of the readers oi a journal of 
 medical history may like to trail him by a 
 letter and by some picture postcards, on a 
 quarter of which he could squeeze much in 
 his fine writing. 
 
 Cannes. 
 A great coast. Such sunshine. We have been 
 here \Yi weeks — delighted with everything. This 
 is a gorgeous spot. Where I put the -+- is the little 
 town of Gourdron. They had to get high up on 
 account of the Moors. I am thinking of settling at 
 Monte-Carlo — they say there is a good opening. 
 I lost S.25 in five minutes and then stopped. We 
 go to Rome on the 7th. So far as women are con- 
 cerned this is the Remnant Counter of Europe. . . . 
 
 .Milan. 
 I forgot whether I wrote about the Vesal 
 Tabulae sex at the San Marco — I think I did. 
 Splendid as illustrating the evolution of his knowl- 
 edge — also of Calcar as they are very crude in 
 comparison with the 1542. Nothing much in 
 Pavia — nothing in comparison with Bologna and 
 Padua. Library good — no Vesal items <>f moment, 
 not even the 1543. A 1st ed. of Mundinus, but no 
 plates. I have not lx*en able to locate a single 
 Mundinus MS. — I wonder where they can be. 
 The Ambrosiana la-re is a fine collection. I had 5 
 original MSS. of Cardan to look o ver the auto- 
 biography is complete he wrote a uonderlul 
 
 hand— no wonder the printers [iked to gel his 
 copy. Hopli here has no large stock — th<>' the bctl 
 publisher in Italy. Love to the bairns. . . . 
 
 11 
 
Rome. 
 
 Rome at last! Wonderful! What pigmies we are 
 in comparison with those old fellows. So much to 
 see and everything intensely interesting. I have 
 not yet been to the Vatican Library. Splendid 
 bookshops here. I have already got some treasures. 
 Redi and Valisneri — splendid editions. So glad of 
 your letter today (i ith). Love to the darlings. 
 
 Florence. 
 Yours came this morning — two days late for 
 personal attention to your Lang commission. I 
 was recalled to Rome (stranded American) and 
 I sanctified my fee by buying three copies of Vesal. 
 2nd edition, fine one for myself. A first for McGill 
 (300 fr. was stiff but it goes for 500!) and another 
 for the Frick Library. I was sorry to miss the 
 Rhazes — the Brussels Library secured it. I have 
 two copies also of the Venice edition of the Vesal. 
 Have you one? I will send your list to Lang. They 
 are Germans and know their worth. I bought one 
 Imperialis for the sake of the Vesal picture — they 
 have another which I will ask them to send. The 
 Gilbert facsimile is good and the Berengarius. 
 Did I tell you I got the original Gilbert at the 
 Amherst sale? I got a beauty Aristotle 1476 de 
 partibus animalium at Laschers. This place is of 
 overwhelming interest — libraries, pictures, etc. The 
 Laurentian library is just too splendid for words 
 — 7000 chained mss., all in the putei designed 
 by Michael Angelo. I have a photo of the end of 
 
 one for you. The book shops are good. B 
 
 one of the best in Europe. He has 500 incunabula 
 on the shelves, a Silvaticus — a cuss of no moment 
 — of 1476, a superb folio, one of the first printed in 
 Bologna — fresh and clean as if printed yesterday 
 and such a page! but . . . asks 1500 francs. His 
 things are wonderful. But really auction sales (are) 
 is the only economical way to get old books. The 
 dealers have to put up their prices to pay interest 
 on the stock. I am sorry not to have seen the Junta 
 12 
 
Galen — there are 5 Venice editions of that firm! 
 By the way the Pitti picture of Vesal is very fine 
 — I am looking for a photo — the beard is tinged 
 with grey. . . . 
 
 Re Alcmeon, see Gomperz Greek Thinkers — he 
 was the earliest and greatest of the Magna Graeca 
 anatomists. We go from here to Bologna, Padua, 
 Venice, &c. I have a set of Votives for the Faculty 
 — terra-cotta arms, legs, breasts, yards, eyes, 
 ears, fingers — which the votaries hung in the 
 ^Esculapian temples in gratitude to the God — 
 the modern R. C. ones are wretched (tin) imita- 
 tions. 
 
 I am in a state of acute mental indigestion from 
 plethora — it is really bewildering — so much to see 
 and to do. 
 
 Naples. 
 Thus far on the trip. Glorious place — glorious 
 weather. I wish you were mil. I dreamt of you last 
 night — operating on Hughlings Jackson. The 
 great principle you said in cerebral surgery was 
 to create a commotion by which the association 
 paths were restored. You took off the scalp — like 
 a p. m. incision — made a big hole over the cerebel- 
 lum and put in a Christ Church — whipped cream 
 — wooden instrument and rotated it rapidly. 
 Then put back the bone and sewed him up. You 
 said he would never have a fit again. I said sol- 
 emnly, I am not surprised. H-J. seemed very 
 comfortable after the operation and bought 3 
 oranges from a small Neapolitan who strolled into 
 the Queen-Square amphitheatre! I have been 
 studying my dreams lately and have come to the 
 conclusion that just one-third of my tim<- b spent 
 in an asylum — or should be! 
 
 Two years later, in 191 1 , he made a 
 winter's trip to Egypt and as usual was 
 enthusiastic about all he saw and did. Here 
 
 is a somewhat longer letter. 
 
 1:; 
 
S. S. "Seti" 
 Feb. 22nd, 191 1. 
 
 Such a trip! I would give one of the fragments 
 of Osiris to have you two on this boat. Everything 
 arranged for our comfort and the dearest old 
 dragoman who parades the deck in gorgeous attire 
 with his string of 99 beads — each one representing 
 an attribute of God! We shall take about 10 days 
 to the Dam (Assouan), 580 miles from Cairo. 
 Yesterday we stopped at Assiut and I saw the 
 Hospital of the American Mission — 200 beds, 
 about 20,000 out-patients. Dr. Grant is in charge 
 with 3 assistants and many nurses. I found there 
 an old Clevelander . . . who had fallen off a 
 donkey and broken his ribs, and on the 8th day 
 had thrombosis of left leg. He was better, but at 
 76 he should have stayed at home. The Nile itself 
 is fascinating, an endless panorama — on one side 
 or the other the Arabian or the Libyan desert 
 comes close to the river, often in great lime stone 
 ridges, 200-800 ft. in height; and then the valley 
 widens to eight or ten miles. Yellow water, brown 
 mud, green fields and grey sand and rocks always 
 in sight; and the poor devils dipping up the water 
 in pails from one level to the other. We had a 
 great treat yesterday afternoon. The Pasha of 
 this district has two sons at Oxford and their 
 tutor, A. L. Smith, a great friend of his, sent him 
 a letter about our party. He had a secretary meet 
 us at Assuit and came up the river to Aboutig. 
 We had tea in his house and then visited a Manual 
 Training School for 100 boys, which he supports. 
 In the evening he gave us a big dinner. I wish you 
 could have seen us start off" on donkeys for the 
 half mile to his house. It was hard work talking 
 to him through an interpreter, but he was most 
 interesting — a great tall Arab of very distinguished 
 appearance. A weird procession left his house at 
 10 p.m. — all of us in eve. dress, which seemed to 
 make the donkeys very frisky. Three lantern 
 men, a group of donkey men, two big Arabs with 
 14 
 
rifles and following us a group of men carrying 
 sheep — one alive! chickens, fruit, vegetables, 
 eggs, etc., to stock our larder. We tie up every eve 
 about 8 o'clock, pegging the boat in the mud. 
 The Arabs are fine: our Reis, or pilot, is a direct 
 descendant, I am sure, of Rameses II, judging 
 from his face. After washing himself he spreads 
 his prayer mat at the bow of the boat and says 
 his prayers with the really beautiful somatic 
 ritual of the Muslem. The old Pasha, by the way, 
 is a very holy man and has been to Mecca where 
 he keeps two lamps perpetually burning and 
 tended by two eunuchs. He is holy enough to do 
 the early morning prayer from 4 to 6 a.m. with 
 some 2000 sentences from the Koran. It is a great 
 religion — no wonder Moslem rules in the East. 
 Wonderful crops up here — sugar cane, cotton, 
 beans and wheat. These poor devils work hard 
 but now they have the satisfaction of knowing 
 they are not robbed. We are never out of sight of 
 the desert and the mountains come close on one 
 side or the other. Today we were for miles close 
 under limestone heights — 800-1000 feet, grey and 
 desolate. The river is a ceaseless panorama — the 
 old Nile boats with curved prows and the most 
 remarkable sails, like big jibs, swung on a boom 
 from the top of the masts, usually two and the 
 foresail the larger. I saw some great books in the 
 Khedival Library — monster Korans superbly illu- 
 minated. The finer types have been guarded 
 jealously from the infidel, and Moritz, the librarian, 
 showed me examples of the finer forms that arc- 
 not in any European libraries. Then he looked up 
 a reference and said — " You have in the Bodleian 
 three volumes of a unique and most important 
 16 cent, arabic manuscripl dealing with Egyptian 
 antiquities. We have the other two volumes. 
 Three of the five WOt taken from Egypt in the 
 
 17th oentury. We \\<nil<l give almost anything to 
 get the others." And then he showed me two of 
 the most sumptuous Korans, about 3 It. in height, 
 every page ablaze with gold, which he said they 
 
would offer in exchange. I have written to E. W. 
 B. Cyclops Nicholson urging him to get the 
 curator to make the exchange, but it takes a 
 University decree to part with a Bodley book! 
 Curiously enough I could not find any early 
 Arabian books (of note) in medicine, neither 
 Avicenna or Rhazes in such beautiful form as we 
 have. I have asked a young fellow at school who 
 is interested to look up the matter. We shall have 
 nearly a week in Cairo on our return. I went over 
 the Ankylostoma specimens with Looss and the 
 Bilharzia with Ferguson — both terrible diseases 
 here (not the men!) — the latter, a hopeless one 
 and so crippling. There were a dozen or more 
 bladder cases in the hospital and the polypous 
 cholitis which it causes is extraordinary. They 
 must spend more money on scientific medicine. 
 Looss has very poor accommodations. The labora- 
 tories are good, but the staffs are very insufficient. 
 The hospital is impossible. I am brown as a 
 fellah — such sun — a blaze all day. We reached 
 Cairo in one of those sand storms, the air filled 
 with a greyish dust which covers everything and 
 is most irritating to eyes and tubes. This boat is 
 delightful — five — six miles an hour against the 
 current, which is often very rapid. The river gets 
 very shallow at this season, and is fully eighteen 
 feet below flood level. I have been reading Herodu- 
 tus, who is the chief authority now on the ancient 
 history of Egypt. He seems to have told all of the 
 truth he could get and it has been verified of late 
 years in the most interesting way. Tomorrow we 
 start at 8 for the Tombs of Denderah — a donkey 
 ride of an hour. We are tied up to one of Cook's 
 floating barge docks, squatted out side is a group of 
 natives and the Egyptian policeman (who is in evi- 
 dence at each stopping-place) is parading with an 
 old Snider and a fine stock of cartridges in his belt. 
 P. S. 24th. Have just seen Denderah and the 
 Temple of Hathor. Heavens, what feeble pigmies 
 we are! Even with steam, electricity and the 
 Panama Canal. 
 
 16 
 
What fun to travel with a spirit like this, 
 and he rarely went anywhere without hav- 
 ing two or three youngsters on his trail. 
 The summer his Oxford decision was finally 
 made two of us crossed with him, indeed 
 shared the same small stateroom, and, as I 
 recall it, were not permitted to pay our 
 share. We learned something of his methods 
 of work, and had we not been on this inti- 
 mate basis he would have appeared to us, 
 as to the other voyagers, as the most care- 
 free individual aboard. As a matter of fact 
 he was always the first awake, and we 
 would find him propped up with pillows 
 reading or writing, and his bunk was so 
 cluttered with books during the whole trip 
 that there was scant room for its legitimate 
 occupant. He breakfasted while we dressed, 
 and then went on with his morning's work 
 while the rest of us wandered about the 
 deck with good intentions but usually with 
 an unread book under our arms. At luncheon 
 he would appear; the remainder of the day 
 was a continuous frolic. We roped in the 
 ship's doctor and got up a medical society 
 of the physicians aboard. I find that I have 
 preserved the program which he arranged. 
 
 MEDICO-NAUTICAL STUDIES 
 
 By Members of the North Atlantic Medical Societ] 
 Edited by 
 Dr. Francis Vf.rdon 
 of 
 
 S. S. "Campaniu" 
 Perpetual I'm ident 
 
 'I be volume containing tboul ■even bandied peges will Ik- 
 
 issinil from the Utopian Press, Thos. More A inti* 
 
 Pritr i'l. 
 
 17 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. A study of the 'sea-change' 
 
 mentioned in the "Tem- 
 pest" as a key to the 
 Shakespeare-Baconian 
 controversy 
 
 II. The minimal lymph pres- 
 
 sure in the ampullae as a 
 cause of sea-sickness 
 
 III. The otoconial rattle in sea- 
 
 sickness. A study in aural 
 ausculatory physics 
 
 IV. On Broadbent's theory of 
 
 steady dextral cerulean 
 vision as a preventative in 
 the disease 
 
 V. A demonstration of the 
 ' centripedal course of the 
 
 neuro-electrical vagal 
 waves of Rosenbach, with 
 ten charts 
 
 VI. A comprehensive investiga- 
 
 tion on marine phosphenes 
 with their relation to 
 latitude and longitude 
 
 VI I. A statistical inquiry into the 
 
 sequelae of sea-sickness 
 in ten thousand consecu- 
 tive cases treated success- 
 fully with specifics 
 
 VIII. On the chemistry of aqua- 
 
 verdin. A new gastro-cu- 
 taneous sea pigment 
 
 IX. A comparative study of the 
 
 effects of prolonged sea- 
 sickness on (i) drinkers 
 (2) abstainers 
 
 X. The aesthetics of sea-sick- 
 
 ness, with six photo-grav- 
 ures from sketches by 
 Sargent and Abbey 
 
 XI. Salt as the cause of appendi- 
 
 citis — results of a collec- 
 tive investigation show- 
 ing the extraordinary fre- 
 quencjr of the disease after 
 sea voyages 
 
 XII. A sociological inquiry upon 
 
 the influence of sea travel 
 on the birth rate of differ- 
 ent communities 
 
 By James Tyson 
 By Harvey Cushing 
 By Maitland Ramsay 
 
 By William Osier 
 
 By T. McCrae 
 By J. A. Andrews 
 
 By Francis Verdon 
 By Campbell Howard 
 
 By T. G. Roddick 
 
 By Henry Barton Jacobs 
 
 By Herbert Bruce 
 By Jas. Stewart 
 
 All this was doubtless very frivolous but 
 he spent no idle hours, and getting enjoy- 
 ment out of trifles at the proper time and 
 making others participate was as character- 
 istic of the man as his hours of industry 
 when sitting down to the day's work. 
 
 18 
 
Few scholars have received more recog- 
 nition for their work, few have received so 
 many honors nor carried them so well. With 
 it all he preached and practiced humil- 
 ity. To quote from one of the essays in 
 "Aequinimitas": 
 
 "In these days of aggressive self-assertion, 
 when the stress of competition is so keen and the 
 desire to make the most of oneself so universal 
 it may seem a little old-fashioned to preach the 
 necessity of this virtue, but I insist for its own 
 sake, and for the sake of what it brings, that a due 
 humility should take the place of honour on the 
 list." 
 
 His charm as a writer had much to do with 
 his great success as a teacher, and his 
 bibliography, covering a period of 49 years, 
 is most extensive — 730 titles, including his 
 collected essays and addresses, having been 
 assembled by Miss Blogg in commemora- 
 tion of his last birthday. There is a great 
 range of subjects beside those pertaining to 
 medicine and medical history. His "Text- 
 Book of Medicine," of which nearly 200,- 
 000 copies have been printed, kept con- 
 stantlytunder revision, translated into French, 
 German, Spanish and Chinese and now 
 entering on its ninth edition, was written 
 during his early years in Baltimore and 
 since 1892 has been read — nay devoured — 
 by countless medical students and graduates 
 alike. It remains probably the most used 
 and most useful book in medicine today. 
 
 As is well known, his attachment to 
 young men and his fondness for literary 
 allusion once got him into trouble by a 
 
quotation from "The Fixed Period," one 
 of Anthony TroIIope's rarer novels, which 
 probably few have read and which is diffi- 
 cult to obtain, as the present writer knows 
 to his cost. Thus the remark about chloro- 
 form, really TroIIope's, was made in the 
 course of his farewell address to his devoted 
 Baltimore colleagues and friends, many of 
 whom were over 60, an age he was approach- 
 ing himself. And he would have been the 
 last to have offended them. It was an 
 address full of deep feeling for all that he 
 was soon to leave behind, but the represen- 
 tatives of the press who were present 
 singled out this one remark to be headlined. 
 The sad feature of this episode is that it 
 stands as one of the best examples of the 
 heartlessness of the press when an oppor- 
 tunity offers itself for copy, no matter who 
 may be sacrificed. On the eve of his depar- 
 ture from America the notoriety probably 
 hurt him considerably, though he wisely 
 made no reply, not even at the great ban- 
 quet which was given him at the time by 
 the profession of the country, on which 
 occasion Weir Mitchell presented him with 
 the rare Franklin imprint of Cicero's "De 
 Senectute." He knew when to keep his 
 tongue as with a bridle. 
 
 His IngersoII Lecture on "Science and 
 Immortality" is a good example of his 
 charming literary style, and there is an 
 interesting story of how he came to accept 
 the lectureship, which others must tell. It 
 was given late in 1904, a few months before 
 his transference to Oxford, when he was in 
 
 20 
 
great demand everywhere and by everyone 
 and could find no time for its preparation. 
 Finally, a few days before the date of the 
 occasion, he slipped away one night to New 
 York, hid in the University Club, and 
 wrote the lecture in a single morning. It is 
 so full of allusion that to appreciate it fully 
 one must read it with the Bible in one hand, 
 the "Religio Medici" in the other, and "In 
 Memoriam" near by. In this he gives his 
 own confessio fidei to the effect that, as 
 Cicero had once said, he would rather be 
 mistaken with Plato than be in the right 
 with those who deny altogether the life 
 after death. 
 
 At seventy in the forefront of activities 
 innumerable, of unusual physical vigor and 
 buoyancy, coming of a long-lived race, 
 William Osier's death may be regarded as 
 a consequence of the war. No human being 
 loathed strife more than he; few had been 
 as successful in avoiding it in any guise. 
 This characteristic made him suffer unduly 
 from the very outbreak of the conflict. He 
 nevertheless threw himself into it with 
 characteristic energy in connection with the 
 War Office, on committees, in hospitals, and 
 as a senior consultant to the Forces he 
 received a Colonel's commission. The Brit- 
 ish reply to the famous German professional 
 note issued early in the war was, I believe, 
 written by him and shows the man's spirit 
 and, as always, his charity. The opening 
 and closing paragraphs may be quoted : 
 
 We see with regret tlu* names of many i 
 
 man profeSSOTS and men of sciriuv, whom We 
 21 
 
regard with respect and, in some cases, with 
 personal friendship, appended to a denunciation 
 of Great Britain so utterly baseless that we can 
 hardly believe that it expresses their spontaneous 
 or considered opinion. We do not question for a 
 moment their personal sincerity when they express 
 their horror of War and their zeal for "the achieve- 
 ments of culture." Yet we are bound to point out 
 that a very different view of War, and of national 
 aggrandizement based on the threat of War, has 
 been advocated by such influential writers as 
 Nietzsche, von Treitschke, von-Bulow, and von 
 Bernhardi, and has received widespread support 
 from the press and from public opinion in Ger- 
 many. This has not occurred, and in our judgment 
 would scarcely be possible, in any other civilized 
 country. We must also remark that it is German 
 armies alone which have, at the present time, 
 deliberately destroyed or bombarded such monu- 
 ments of human culture as the Library at Louvain 
 and the Cathedrals at Rheims and Malines. No 
 doubt it is hard for human beings to weigh justly 
 their country's quarrels; perhaps particularly 
 hard for Germans, who have been reared in an 
 atmosphere of devotion to their Kaiser and his 
 army, who are feeling acutely at the present hour, 
 and who live under a Government which, we 
 believe, does not allow them to know the truth. 
 Yet it is the duty of learned men to make sure of 
 their facts. . . . 
 
 The German professors appear to think that 
 Germany has, in this matter, some considerable 
 body of sympathizers in the Universities of Great 
 Britain. They are gravely mistaken. Never within 
 our lifetime has this country been so united on 
 any great political issue. We ourselves have a real 
 and deep admiration for German scholarship and 
 science. We have many ties with Germany, ties 
 of comradeship, of respect, and of affection. We 
 grieve profoundly that, under the baleful influ- 
 ence of a military system and its lawless dreams 
 of conquest, she whom we once honoured now 
 22 
 
stands revealed as the common enemy of Europe 
 and of all peoples which respect the Law of Na- 
 tions. We must carry on the war on which we have 
 entered. For us, as for Belgium, it is a war of 
 defence, waged for liberty and peace. 
 
 His only child, Revere, an Oxford under- 
 graduate and his father's devoted playmate, 
 who too hated strife, on coming of military 
 age underwent training as a field artillery 
 officer, was commissioned Lieutenant, 
 served with his battery with great credit 
 for a year in France, and was mortally 
 wounded in action September 2, 191 7, in 
 the Ypres salient. Thus the great grandson 
 of our Paul Revere who roused Lexington 
 and Concord lies under a wooden cross in 
 Flanders in the corner of a foreign field that 
 is forever England. By a strange coincid- 
 ence, a group of American officers, who 
 knew what grief this would bring, were 
 there to bare their heads at his Last Post. 
 
 From this loss, particularly heartrending 
 to one of his nature, his father never fully 
 recovered. Though unchanged in his out- 
 ward dealings with people and affairs, he 
 suffered much from insomnia and his health 
 was so undermined that he became an easy 
 prey to an old enemy, bronchial attacks. 
 He finally contracted pneumonia and died 
 suddenly on December 29th from one of its 
 complications which had made an operation 
 necessary. 
 
 At the time of the farewell dinner in New 
 York in 1905, Dr. Osier confessed under the 
 emotion of his reply to the tribute that had 
 been paid him, thai to few men had happi- 
 
 23 
 
ness come in so many forms as it had come 
 to him; that his three personal ideals had 
 been, to do the day's work well, to act the 
 Golden Rule in so far as in him lay, and 
 lastly to cultivate such a measure of equa- 
 nimity as would enable him to bear success 
 with humility, the affection of his friends 
 without pride, and to be ready when the 
 day of sorrow and grief came to meet it 
 with the courage befitting a man. 
 
 During these last two years, though he 
 must have felt at times, as did his anxious 
 friends, that possibly his span was run, his 
 spirit was unflagging. His son, though essen- 
 tially an out-of-doors boy, through living 
 in an atmosphere of books acquired biblio- 
 philic tastes of his own and had formed, like 
 Harry Widener at Harvard and Alexander 
 Cochrane at Yale a valuable collection of 
 imprints of the Tudor and Stewart periods. 
 To this collection, Sir William subsequently 
 made many additions from his own care- 
 fully chosen books and manuscripts. He 
 and Lady Osier presented the collection to 
 the Johns Hopkins undergraduates as a 
 memorial to their son, to become something 
 like the Elizabethan Club at Yale, a rallying 
 point for young college men with literary 
 and bookloving tendencies. He worked, too, 
 at every odd moment to complete, so far as 
 possible, the unique catalogue of his own 
 lifetime collection of treasures relating to 
 the history and literature of medicine, rang- 
 ing from a medical tablet from Sardanapolis 
 through a series of priceless manuscripts 
 and incunabulas to the essential contribu- 
 
 24 
 
tions to medicine in their originals of our 
 own time. 
 
 This incomparable collection with its 
 elaborate catalogue, which is not a mere 
 enumeration of volumes but is largely bio- 
 graphical, indeed autobiographical in char- 
 acter, is destined for the library of McGill, 
 where he held his first chair in medicine. 
 Sir William as may not be generally known 
 had lately been offered but had refused the 
 position as the head of that great Canadian 
 university. He also received a year ago the 
 amazing offer from both political parties 
 that he stand as fusion candidate for the 
 Oxford seat in Parliament, but refused on 
 the ground that it should in justice be 
 offered to Asquith. 
 
 As President of the Classical Association, 
 one of his most notable and, so far as I 
 know, his last address, on "The Old Hu- 
 manities and the New Sciences" was given 
 before that body in Oxford, May 16th, 19 19. 
 That a scientist and physician should be- 
 come president of the most eminent group 
 of British scholars, whose aim is to "pro- 
 mote the development and maintain the 
 well-being of classical studies" would seem 
 incongruous did one not know the man 
 whose Greek Testament always stood by 
 the "Rcligio Medici" at his bedside. Dis- 
 claiming that he had "ever by pen or tongue 
 suggested the possession of even the tradi- 
 tional small Latin and less Greek," in this 
 remarkable address given in his most bril- 
 liant style he makes a plea for no human 
 
letters without natural science and no 
 science without human letters. 
 
 It was inevitable that the address should 
 be colored by frequent allusions to the war 
 and appeals for individual service to the 
 community. Quoting Plato's "Republic" 
 that" States are as the men are, they grow 
 out of human characters," he concludes 
 with this paragraph : 
 
 With the hot blasts of hate still on our cheeks, 
 it may seem a mockery to speak of this as the 
 saving asset in our future; but is it not the very 
 marrow of the teaching in which we have been 
 brought up? At last the gospel of the right to live, 
 and the right to live healthy, happy lives, has 
 sunk deep into the hearts of the people; and before 
 the war, so great was the work of science in pre- 
 venting untimely death that the day of Isaiah 
 seemed at hand "when a man's life should be 
 more precious than fine gold, even a man than the 
 gold of Ophir." There is a sentence in the writings 
 of the Father of Medicine upon which all com- 
 mentators have lingered, rp> yap irapy 4>i\av6po)irLr), 
 Trapearu /ecu c/>iXorex*'"7 — the love of humanity 
 associated with the love of his craft! — philan- 
 thropia and philotechnia — the joy of working 
 joined in each one to a true love of his brother. 
 Memorable sentence indeed, in which for the first 
 time was coined the magic word philanthropy, 
 and conveying the subtle suggestion that perhaps 
 in this combination the longings of humanity 
 may find their solution, and Wisdom — philosophia 
 — at last be justified of her children. 
 
 Two of Osier's lay sermons to students 
 have been published, in which his own life 
 habits are more or less reflected. In one of 
 them given at Yale where he was giving the 
 Silliman Lectures in 191 3, he offered "his 
 
 26 
 
fellow students" a way of life — "a path in 
 which the wayfaring mart cannot err, a life 
 in day-tight compartments, the main busi- 
 ness of which is not to see dimly at a 
 distance, but to do what lies clearly at 
 hand." 
 
 In 19 10 "Man's Redemption of Man" 
 was delivered at a service for the students 
 at the University of Edinburgh. Osier un- 
 consciously chose as his text from Isaiah 
 what he himself has been to those who knew 
 him. 
 
 And a man shall be as an hiding-place 
 from the wind, and a covert from the 
 tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as 
 the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
 land. 
 
 Paul B. Hobbbk, 69-71 Easi tgrrn Stkbbt, Nbh York 
 27 
 
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