288 A HISTORY OF NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION 



news-seeking press which had taken seriously a jocular remark 

 he had made on the subject of euthanasia when, as a result of a 

 statement the author had occasion to make at a meeting of the 

 National Tuberculosis Association, he had to suffer a similar 

 experience. During a discussion on the use of morphin in tu- 

 berculosis the author ventured to say that in his opinion it was 

 an almost indispensable remedy to assuage pain in the hopelessly 

 ill consumptive. The statement was apparently approved by 

 all present, for it is well known that by the judicious administra- 

 tion of morphin we not only make the patient more comfortable, 

 but in reality prolong life. Yet, to the amazement of nearly 

 everybody who heard it, among whom were the leading authori- 

 ties on tuberculosis in this country, the author was denounced 

 the following morning in a Philadelphia paper as having openly 

 favored the administration of enough morphin to hopelessly ill 

 tuberculous patients to end their lives. As is usual with such 

 sensational so-called news items, this statement quickly made 

 the rounds of the American and European press. On learning 

 of this calumnious attack leveled against a younger colleague, 

 Osier's indignation had no bounds. His own sufferings from a 

 similar experience he had borne with that equanimity of resigna- 

 tion characteristic of his great soul, but when it befell somebody 

 else it was different. He urged the author to start legal pro- 

 ceedings against that newspaper at once, offered his private 

 purse to defray expenses, and assured him the support of the 

 American profession at large. He stood by him to the end of a 

 very hard but finally victorious battle, defending him publicly and 

 comforting him in private by letters of sympathy and friendship, 

 which helped, him to bear up under a most trying and painful 

 experience. 



Osier was devoted to his pupils, but he was also devoted to his 

 teachers, and the veneration and enthusiasm he expressed when 

 he spoke of his own masters and the masters of us all was an 

 inspiration that not only stimulated the interest in historic medi- 

 cine, but aroused gratitude for the inheritance which the teachers 

 of past generations have left us. On October 5, 1905, he took 

 the American delegation, which had attended the Fifth Inter- 

 national Tuberculosis Congress in Paris, to the cemetery of 



