SIR WILLIAM OSLER, BART., M.D., LL.D. 289 



Mont Parnasse to deposit a wreath on the tomb of Louis, the 

 French physician, at whose feet so many American physicians of 

 the past generation had sat. It was a touching tribute and gave 

 the younger men a lesson in gratitude to our teachers. The 

 accompanying picture of that occasion shows Osier in a thought- 

 ful attitude after having made a short and impressive address to 

 the American delegation by whom he is surrounded. The delega- 

 tion included Drs. Whitman, Norton, Leonard Pearson, George 

 H. Evans, Arnold C. Klebs, D. J. McCarthy, A. J. Magnin, 

 Henry Barton Jacobs, John W. Brannan, A. Kayserling, Henry 

 Beyer, John H. Lowman, F. M. Pottenger, and S. Adolphus 

 Knopf. 



Such a biographical sketch as this must necessarily be incom- 

 plete. Osier was one of the greatest physicians of the Anglo- 

 Saxon race of the present day, but we are considering mainly his 

 activities as a tuberculosis worker. As such he instructed thou- 

 sands of students by word of mouth and by his writings on early 

 diagnosis, practical prophylaxis, and rational treatment. In a 

 lecture he delivered soon after his arrival in England he said : 



"Probably 90 per cent, of mankind has latent tuberculosis, and if I had an 

 instrument here with which I could look into the chest and abdomen of each 

 of you I would probably find somewhere a small area of the disease. So wide- 

 spread is the germ that practically all humans, by the time they become adults, 

 harbor the bacillus of the disease. But we do not die, because we are not guinea- 

 pigs and rabbits. We have attained a certain immunity. But the germ is in 

 us, though negative, and with all of us there is the possibility of slipping into 

 the dangerous state. But when workers have living wages, when the house 

 becomes the home, and the nation spends on food what it now spends on drink, 

 then there will be millions instead of thousands with practically continuous 

 immunity. For the enemy has been tracked to its stronghold, which is de- 

 fended by three allies poverty, bad housing, and drink." 



Characteristic of William Osier and his labors are the words 

 which grace the photograph he presented to those who bade him 

 farewell on May 2, 1905, when he was about to leave for Oxford. 

 They were the immortal words of Abou Ben Adhem, "Write me 

 as one that loves his fellow-men." 



The tributes paid to Osier by some of his pupils, colleagues and 

 friends are most touching. Harvey Cushing, one of his favorite 

 pupils, closes his remarks in the Annals of Medical History with 

 19 



