William Osler

Artist: Thomas Cromwell Corner; Oil on canvas

William Osler was born in a remote part of Ontario known as Bond Head on July 12, 1849. He spent a year at Trinity College in Ontario before deciding on a career in medicine. He attended the Toronto Medical College for two years and in 1872 received his M.D. from McGill University in Montreal. He studied in London, Berlin, and Vienna before returning to Canada in 1874 and joining the medical faculty at McGill. A year later he was promoted to professor. Osler was elected a fellow of the British Royal College of Physicians in 1883, one of only two Canadian fellows at that time. In 1884, he left Montreal for Philadelphia to become professor of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1888, William Osler was recruited to be physician-in-chief of the soon-to-opened Johns Hopkins Hospital, and professor of medicine at the planned school of medicine. Osler was the second appointed member of the original four medical faculty. Osler adapted the English system to egalitarian American principles by teaching all medical students at the bedside. He believed that students learned best by doing and clinical instruction should therefore begin with the patient and end with the patient. Books and lectures were supportive tools to this end. The same principles applied to the laboratory, and all students were expected to do some work in the bacteriology laboratory. Osler introduced the German postgraduate training system, instituting one year of general internship followed by several years of residency with increasing clinical responsibilities.

William Osler’s book, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, first published in 1892, supported his imaginative new curriculum. It was based upon the advances in medical science of the previous fifty years and remained the standard text on clinical medicine for the next forty years.

Dr. Osler was President of MedChi from 1896-97 and was responsible for expanding the medical library, first to a location on Eutaw Street and then, in 1909 to the present location on Cathedral Street. His presence is still prominent in MedChi’s Osler Hall, a large conference and meeting room.

Sir William Osler, First Baronet, died in England on December 29, 1919.

The painting, by Thomas Corner, was a gift from friends of Dr. Osler, and was presented in 1905. However, in 1908, a nearly identical portrait of Osler was given by Mr. Corner, who regarded it superior to the first in tone and character and which was repainted at the artist's own suggestion.