THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



5 6 9 



THE PBOGKESS OF SCIENCE. 



DR. WILLIAM OSLER. 

 In the acceptance by Dr. William 

 Osier of the regius professorship of 

 medicine in the University of Oxford, 

 the Johns Hopkins University loses its 

 professor of medicine, the Johns Hop- 

 kins Hospital its physician-in-chief, and 

 the medical profession in America a 

 leader untiringly devoted to its service. 



Dr. Osier is one of several talented 

 brothers, sons of an episcopal clergy- 

 man in Canada. His life has thus 

 far been a series of successes, long 

 enough and valuable enough to give 

 him a permanent and distinguished 

 place in the annals of American med- 

 ical history. He is still a relatively 

 young man, younger even than his 

 fifty-six years would indicate, and it 

 may with confidence be predicted that 

 important additions to his records of 

 service will follow upon his residence 

 in England. 



In Montreal, as a young physician, 

 he taught physiology, pathology and 

 clinical medicine for ten years after 

 graduation, at the end of which period 

 he accepted a professorship of clinical 

 medicine in the University of Penn- 

 sylvania. Five years later he was ap- 

 pointed to the Johns Hopkins positions, 

 in which, during the past sixteen years, 

 his most important work has been 

 done. The results of his Baltimore 

 activities testify to the sagacity of the 

 men who selected him to meet the 

 unique opportunities which the hos- 

 pital and university there offered. 



The services Dr. Osier has rendered, 

 though difficult to estimate accurately 

 at this nearness, has certainly been 

 varied. It includes that of an investi- 

 gator, of a medical teacher, of a prac- 

 titioner, and last, by no means least, 

 of an ethical preacher. 



As an investigator, his earlier studies 



dealt with the histology of the blood, 

 and his name is well known in the 

 bibliography of the nucleated red cor- 

 puscles and the blood-platelets. Later 

 on, his researches consisted chiefly in 

 the combination of accurate clinical 

 observation with careful post-mortem 

 examinations. Among his best known 

 publications are those dealing with 

 acute ulcerative endocarditis, the cere- 

 bral palsies of children, chorea and 

 allied disorders, typhoid fever, tuber- 

 culous pleurisy, abdominal tumors and 

 chronic cyanosis. Though in the Johns 

 Hopkins period his many teaching and 

 executive duties, together with a 

 rapidly increasing consultation prac- 

 tise, did not leave him much consecu- 

 tive time for original work, he was 

 ever stimulating the young men about 

 him to undertake such work and en- 

 couraging them by sympathy and af- 

 fording opportunity. 



As a teacher of medicine Dr. Osier 

 achieved extraordinary success. He 

 knew how to excite enthusiasm in those 

 who followed him through the wards 

 or listened to him in the amphitheater 

 or the dispensary. He is one of the 

 few teachers of internal medicine who 

 have competed successfully with the 

 surgeon and the gynecologist in hold- 

 ing the attention and inspiring the in- 

 terest and ambition of the medical stu- 

 dent and young medical graduate. In 

 the hospital he adopted the English- 

 Scotch system of clinical clerkship in 

 the wards, and improved upon it. He 

 did away with didactic lectures and 

 made his students, even before gradu- 

 ation, learn medicine by studying 

 themselves the patients directly, using 

 books and teachers only as guides and 

 aids. The importance of thorough ob- 

 jective routine examination was urged; 

 the laboratory and the current litera- 



