Item Description
William Osler: A Life in Medicine
Written By: Michael Bliss
A well-told, enjoyable, enlightening—and
much needed—biography of a giant of medical practice and education. William Osler (1849—1919) was a pastor's son from rural Canada, the 8th of 9 children, who began his professional career as a ... more » pathologist; his career in medical teaching and clinical practice was eventually framed by stints at McGill, Johns Hopkins, and finally Oxford. By the time of his death, Osler was considered by colleagues and patients alike to be the greatest physician in the world; while at Hopkins he had revolutionized the clinical education of medical students; he wrote the groundbreaking text The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which finally went out of print in 1947, 16 editions later (and marked the last time such a wide-ranging tome had a single author), and was generally revered as the first great medical humanist. Osler's previous biographer, the great neurosurgeon (and Osler contemporary) Cushing, delivered a plodding, admiring—and until now authoritative—account of Osler's life and work in 1925. Medical historian Bliss (The Discovery of Insulin) here is able to sort through the mountains of material penned by Osler and his contemporaries to present a much more complete, clear-eyed, and ultimately admiring portrait of Osler, his work, and the times in which he lived. Bliss is able to sort out the cult-like devotion to Osler: In 1999, we can "rightly dismiss most of his medical writing as dated, of only historic or very specialized interest." And yes, Bliss agrees, Osler can be viewed as a great medical humanist—'so long as it was remembered that the real Osler was also a rigorous disciple of science and the scientific method." A clear picture of an extraordinarily curious, intelligent, kind, and humorous man emerges. Osler reportedly regretted that he wouldn't be able to conduct his own post-mortem exam, "having taken such a lifelong interest in the case." And along the way, readers will gain a clear picture of the Osler landscape: "the coming of modern medicine, the training of doctors . . . localism and holism in medical thought . . . feminism, humanism, science and the humanities, Victorianism, the rise of the United States, the North Atlantic cultural triangle" all come under Bliss's lens. A first-rate biography of a towering medical influence.
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