Background
William Osler was born in Tecumseh, Ontario, on July 12, 1849. His father was a clergyman, so his upbringing was in a religious atmosphere.
("A Way of Life" is the text of an address that Sir Willia...)
"A Way of Life" is the text of an address that Sir William Osler gave at Yale University in 1913. He recommends approaching life as a series of "day-tight compartments," which he likens to the water-tight compartments that keep a ship afloat. (an Interesting analogy just a year after the sinking of the Titanic sank). William Osler's point is that worrying about either the past or the future is a burden that does nothing but reduce your effectiveness. If you focus your attention on what you have to do today, then over time, a string of successful days will make for a successful life. He quotes Thomas Carlyle: "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." William Osler primarily attributes his own success not to talent or intelligence, but to good habits, consistently practiced, day after day after day. This is a small book filled with simple, eloquent wisdom that is every bit as applicable today as it was in 1913.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1611040647/?tag=2022091-20
( Sir William Osler (18491919) had a long and distinguis...)
Sir William Osler (18491919) had a long and distinguished career as a physician and professor at McGill University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Johns Hopkins University, and finally, as the Regius Chair in Medicine at Oxford University. Over the course of his professional life, Osler gave many addressesmostly to medical studentson medical ethics, medicine and the humanities, the relationship between the medical practitioner and the patient, and, as the titular essay makes clear, on the way of life he advocated for the ethical physician. He remains an inspiration to many contemporary medical practitioners; there are active Osler Societies throughout the world. While Oslers talks were frequently published during his lifetime and they have been published individually and in different compilations since his death, none contain the over 1500 annotations that appear here, notes that serve to explain the many philosophical, biblical, historical, and literary allusions contained in Oslers writings. This thoroughly explicated selection of Sir William Oslers writings will be cherished by physicians, medical students, nurses, philosophers, theologians, and ethicists in thisand futuregenerations.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0822326825/?tag=2022091-20
educator historian author medician
William Osler was born in Tecumseh, Ontario, on July 12, 1849. His father was a clergyman, so his upbringing was in a religious atmosphere.
The influence of Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin, turned him toward agnosticism in his days at Trinity College, Toronto. He studied to be a doctor, first at the Toronto School of Medicine and then at McGill University, where he graduated in 1872. Further studies were at University College, London, and at medical centers in Berlin and Vienna.
After returning to Canada he accepted the chair of physiology and pathology at McGill, where he continued research in pathology, working on freshwater polyzoa and parasites; he studied hog cholera in 1878-1880. Osler held the chair of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania from 1884 to 1889, when he went to Baltimore as professor of the principles and practice of medicine and as physician-in-chief at the university hospital. There he joined William H. Welch, William Halsted, and Howard Kelly to form a brilliant medical team sometimes called the "Big Four" of Johns Hopkins. In 1905 Osler was appointed regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, England. However, he remained in constant demand at home and abroad for lectures. The classical flavor of his speech and writing, combined with its wit and insight, has hardly been equaled among medical scholars. He also collected an unusual medical history library of rare books. His library room was transported and restored at the McGill Medical School in Montreal to preserve intact his valuable collection. Many distinctions and honors came Osler's way, including a baronetcy in 1911. His humanitarianism was exemplified by his criticism of war, which took the life of his only child, Revere, in 1917. Osler died at Oxford on December 29, 1919.
( Sir William Osler (18491919) had a long and distinguis...)
("A Way of Life" is the text of an address that Sir Willia...)
Quotations:
"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. "
"The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish. "
"Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conceptions of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book. See, and then reason and compare and control. But see first. "
"Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look - these the patient understands. "
"Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!"
"The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine. "
"The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation. "
"It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has. "
"Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert. "
"The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. "
"He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all. "
"Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day absorb all your interest, energy and enthusiasm. The best preparation for tomorrow is to live today superbly well. "
"The practice of medicine will be very much as you make it - to one a worry, a care, a perpetual annoyance; to another, a daily job and a life of as much happiness and usefulness as can well fall to the lot of man, because it is a life of self-sacrifice and of countless opportunities to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up those that fall. "
"Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease. "
"To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle. "
In 1892 William Osler married Grace Osler and 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.