SIR WILLIAM OSLER. 497 



blood platelets. Chiefly, however, in this period he was laying a 

 foundation for his future clinical work in a thorough and extensive 

 knowledge of pathological anatomy gained from making post mortem 

 dissections with the enthusiasm of a keen minded, enthusiastic, in- 

 defatigable worker. This interest in pathological anatomy he never 

 lost and his knowledge of it proved an ever ready help in his subsequent 

 career as a clinician, teaching the principles of the practice of medicine 

 in the wards of the various hospitals where he served. 



At the Johns Hopkins Hospital he inaugurated what was to prove, 

 perhaps, the most important contribution to methods of teaching 

 medicine of the half century in the latter days of which we now live, 

 namely, the learning of medicine by laboratory practice rather than 

 by lecture and recitation, for he made of the hospital wards the labora- 

 tory of clinical medicine in which the same observational methods 

 were pursued as in the laboratories of natural science and the facts of 

 pathological anatomy and physiology were correlated with the pheno- 

 mena of disease as seen in the individual patients. Into this laboratory 

 method he brought the humanizing and inspiring influence of a per- 

 sonality keenly interested in helping and stimulating his fellows and 

 one by nature endowed with a winsomeness, charitableness and humor 

 that made of him for students and patients a lifelong friend. Though 

 a laboratory, yet the wards were always clearly recognized as the place. 

 in which each individual patient must receive the best possible pro- 

 fessional care and the kindly considerative aid that is due to a fellow- 

 man in distress. Though laboratory director, Osier in liis wards was 

 ever the true physician. 



In all of his very numerous contributions to medical science and 

 practice as well as in his textbook of medicine, Osier shows a very dis- 

 tinctive and delightful literary style. He is direct, simple and logical. 

 Examples that illustrate and clarify are chosen with great discretion. 

 In his addresses quotations evince both his knowledge of the best in 

 literature and his ability to emphasize or impress his point by apt 

 quotation. Always greatly interested in the historical background of 

 medicine, he makes much use of historical reference in his writings. 

 There is ever the quaint turn of his humor or some epigrammatic line 

 to enliven the description or discussion. His words are chosen with 

 great charm of diction and still it is rare that his meaning is at all 

 ambiguous. In almost all of his writing there is a personal element 



