Happy Belated Birthday, Sir William

This summer is going by so quickly, that Sir William Osler's 170th birthday on July 12 just blasted by me. But in this special Oslerian year, I wanted to acknowledge it. 

Sir William was born in Bond Head, Ontario, north of Toronto. If you can imagine the territory, NORTH of Ontario in the middle of the 19th century, you might realize what an isolated childhood Osler had. 

He went to school at Trinity College in Ontario after attending local religious schools in the province. He studied medicine at McGill University in Montreal, the place he always considered his spiritual home.

Following several years of travel on "the continent", he returned to Montreal to become a professor of medicine. 

In 1884, Osler left Canada for America, and a professorship of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he stayed for four years.

In 1888, he came to Baltimore to help establish the medical school at Johns Hopkins and become the first physician-in-chief at the newly opened hospital.

His teaching style, based on the European mode of working at the patients' bedside, revolutionized medical education in America. 

At the same time, Osler began work on his seminal book: The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which would remain in print for the next half century. He served as the President of MedChi in 1896, and was responsible for recruiting our long-time librarian, Marcia C. Noyes, and for establishing one of the top medical libraries in the country. 

In 1905, Osler and his family left Baltimore for a new life in Oxford, England,

where he had accepted the position as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. He lived there until his death in December of 1919, 100 years ago. 

Sir William Osler

12 July 1849 – 29 December 1919