DEMOCRATS AND ARISTOCRATS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 415 



demand and rigid dependence on the wishes of the people, may be 

 labeled with the over used and much abused word democrat. 



In the passing of William Osier and Emil Fischer of Berlin, science 

 has in the past year lost two of the foremost minds of the century. 

 Widely different in their fields of scientific endeavor as well as in their 

 manner of cultivating them they may serve to illustrate anew the dis- 

 tinction drawn above. 



Osier spent his life among people, giving to the full of his own 

 strength and skill in the personal effort at the bedside, and outside as 

 a great organizer. He was a member of innumerable societies and 

 committees with the avowed purpose of promoting human welfare in 

 one form or another. His objects are understandable to all. To heal 

 the sick, to prevent suffering, to teach others to do the same, these are 

 things that come within the range of common experience. He was a 

 profound student of tuberculosis and every one knows what tuberculosis 

 is, of typhoid fever, and diseases of the heart. A layman picking up his 

 papers of twenty years ago on cancer of the stomach could see at a 

 glance what he was driving at, might recognize the cuts, and with a 

 little effort understand something of the pathology. His great text- 

 book which went through many editions, has traveled far, being often 

 seen on the "Science Shelf in the smallest of village libraries. His 

 name is familiar consequently to some of the most superficial of readers 

 and because of the nature of his subject he is a person to them, where 

 to the same individuals Fischer would be "a book." 



The enthusiasm he aroused in his students is characteristic of the 

 man. His own life-long student's attitude-that same spirit which used 

 to lead him to say, "And now let us see where we made our mistakes," 

 as he marched into the old autopsy room at Montreal-kept him on earth 

 as far as his pupils were concerned and made him approachable to 

 all. There was a very human touch to his work that belonged not 

 merely to its nature but perhaps much more to his treatment of it. 

 It. must have been a primal urge, something essential in the man, which 

 led him to devote himself to the people in such a way. His campaign 

 must have been for end results, however interesting the preceding dis- 

 coveries were of themselves. If he studied typhoid fever, in the last 

 analysis it must have been with the object of preventing typhoid fever 

 and making it unnecessary to study it, not for the mere acquisition of 

 knowledge of typhoid fever for its own sake. Twenty years ago, com- 

 menting on the waste of life from this disease due to ignorance and 

 neglect, he said, "Very different from death which comes with friendly 

 care to the aged, to the chronic invalid, or the sufferer with some in- 

 curable malady, is that from typhoid fever. A keen sense of personal 

 defeat in a closely contested battle, the heart searching dread lest some- 

 thing had been left undone, the pitifulness of the loss, so needless — 



