Osler As a Bibliophile

Zbc Boston flDefcícal anb Surgical Journal

TABLE OF CONTENTS

April 1, 1920

ADDRESSES How to Conduct Nutrition Clinics and Classes.351 Physician as 351 Osler as a Bibliophile. By Edward C. Streeter, M.D., Boston. 335 A an Ambassador. 351 Osler as his Students Knew Him. By Joseph II. Pratt, M.D., Medical Notes. Boston. 338 MISCELLANY Osler in the Early Days at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. By W. T. Councilman, M.D., Boston. 341 Report upon Health Education by the Joint Committke on Legislation of the Massachusetts Medical Society ORIGINAL ARTICLE and the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society. 356 Renal Function in Vascular Hypertension. By James P. Resolutions on the Death of Dr. Southard... 357 O'Hare, M.D., Boston. 345 United States Civil Service Examinations. 357 EDITORIALS Complimentary Luncheon to General Leonard Wood.358 Child Hygiene in Missouri. 349 Transportation to Meeting of American Medical Associa- Narcotic Drug Regulations. 350 tion, New Orleans, April 26 to 30. 353

reality. Acting on this conviction, "without ' ' fraud, cozen or delay, he happily brought every student with whom he came in touch into a OSLER AS A BIBLIOPHILE. proper system of relations with the achieving minds, the heroic inquiring spirits of past ages. BY Edward C. Streeter, M.D., Boston. Early in his course as teacher he faced this au- In attempting to take a level of the affec- gust relationship squarely. He became, like tions of Dr. Osier we will doubtless find that Boerhaave, one of the greatest exemplars of the next to the love of men with him came love of historical method of medical teaching that ever books. Throughout his life he revealed the has been. In establishing this method in Amer- most amazingly vital concern for both—viewing ica he did the impossible, for this is an unhast- with an equal eye the achievements of the past, ing, laborious method, little suited to the ge- and the promise of things of incomparable value nius of our people. and worth in the living present. A measure of Osier had an instinct for revival and the re- charm men the which he exerted over living newal of grace and force in everything that he came from his converse with the dead. He touched. His range in ordering the topics dis- strove mightily to reconcile the prodigals of the cussed in the Book and Journal Club was wide present with the forgiving Fathers of medicine— indeed—Assyrian Medicine down to the last to turn them from husks to their former meat faintest foot-falls on Cathedral Street. He and the paternal blessing. In him the love of transmuted and touched to higher issues the good books was a flame, never idle, as in those choice estrays of medicine, recalled forgotten who have only a vain and prodigal humor for worthies like Richard Morton and Dover, and this sort of never idle for a furniture, moment, regrouped and shrewdly rearranged some of but was used as a Promethean torch to reillu- the figures in the old medical hierarchy. He mine the light of old authors, in present danger re-invested all his favored ones with historic of and out. A conflict between failing passing reality, launched them from his humanity as the was inconceivable to past and the present genuine forces in the world of science, no him. All that is, is Greek ; or, at least, all that longer lying in bonds in the imagination of the is, is derived. This is the ultimate irreducible studious, merely, but redelivered, given voice *Delivered at a memorial meeting for Dr. Osler held by the He Harvard Medical Society, January 20, 1920. again in the land of the living. shared

The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal as published by The New England Journal of Medicine. Downloaded from nejm.org at SANTA BARBARA (UCSB) on June 20, 2016. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. From the NEJM Archive. Copyright © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society. Browning's power, "the life in him abolished physician who does not need a library sinks to the death in things." Servetus reasserted him- the level of a cross-counter prescribe!-." "To self through him; Linaere, Fracastorius, Leoni- study the phenomena of disease without books cenus and the entire group of humanists, all is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books the master spirits of medicine, Vesalius, Har- without patients is not to go to sea at all." vey, Hunter, reappareled, "bright-harnessed Such was his attitude toward texts in general, and in order serviceable." Here was a new the ordinary hand-apparatus of the practi- way to pay old debts, on a convivial plan, by tioner, and the vast, limitless library of mod- adopting your creditor, giving him tenant- ern contributions, current accumulations, rights in the very house of life in which you which he publicly aided so many centres to live. amass and privately aided so many students to Every English-speaking worker in the medi- use. "Only a maker of books can appreciate at their true value." On cal sciences today has been, in a sense, a stu- the labors of others the same occasion on which Osier said this dent of William Osier, so much so that it will (the appear the height of folly to attempt to calcu- dedication of the Boston Medical Library), he also to in each late the good M'hieh will ultimately come from said', "I should like see library his revival of the historical method. Neglect a select company of Immortals set apart for address of the sources was to him unspeakably shock- special adoration." In fact this short on "Books and Men" is the of his ing. "The beggarly recognition or base indif- key speech to ference" meted out to the men whose minds campaign quicken the study of the classics His in have fertilized science in every direction in of medicine. devotion to this alcove our libraries was intense to have satis- times past, touched him to the quick as an act enough fied '"Philobiblion. " of ingratitude. Last year in May he shamed the quaint author of the the "Greats" in Oxford on this score, using Osier's high pleadings for the "Princes of the the old clarion tones which he had used with blood," the books born within the purple, are students in Baltimore. He brought the world singularly happy products of his mind. "Nay, do as in a as Milton to book—to a realizing sense of the evolution- they preserve vial," ary process behind all the swift revolutions of would say, "the purest efficacy and extraction of medical doctrine. An evolutionist can no more that living intellect that bred them." Here was the of fresh and neglect sources, the original texts and docu- he marrow persuasion, as ments relating to discoveries and advances in clear, as witty and winning, as Holmes at his the science and art of medicine, than best. a just and loyal soul made perfect could Xor were conditions in this country adverse reject the fathers of his fathers. Osier's or hopeless in respect to the gentle art of book- school deals with the Founders in a spirit collecting when Osier first came among us. of gratitude and loyalty; but only "one whose Chadwick, Holmes, Hunt, Treadwell, Bow- best friends have been the old humanists," like ditch, and others in New England were himself, could link arms and walk away thus well launched in this library movement, familiarly with departed heroes. How ten- while in the southern tier of states were Gross, derly they requited him, their Daysman, we Lewis, Weir Mitchell, Kelly, Keen, Jacobs; know from his blithe whimsical account of such in New York, Jacobi and Pilcher. Mightiest walks with the great. He speaks of them quite book hunter of all was Billings at the head simply—as though he had but walked down of our National Medical Library, the Surgeon- Monument Street with President Gilman or General 's of today. Dr. Kelly. Sir William's acquaintance with Many of these men had amassed great store the medical classics extended over fifty years; of rarissimi and choicest examples of the medi- in that time he had come to know every pri- cal classics, even before Osier made his first tour mary contribution ; every precious accent in of study to Boston in 1876. Dr. Kelly says the rich and varied utterance. that when he first met Osier in Philadelphia A "doctor sine libris," such as old Fuller "He stayed to dine in Norris Square, and was describes, was anomalous indeed; a Caliban particularly interested in my collection of old ' ' in the eyes of this Prospero. Books are tools, medical books." What a zest and high appe- doctors are craftsmen," insisted Osier. "A tite for the written record of great minds in

The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal as published by The New England Journal of Medicine. Downloaded from nejm.org at SANTA BARBARA (UCSB) on June 20, 2016. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. From the NEJM Archive. Copyright © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society. all ages was in his guest, not even Dr. Kelly have been etched upon Osier's book-plate—it could have pointed out that night. It was was Savigny's devise but it fits Sir William. quite impossible that anyone who had the tinc- And I fancy that the man who had care, up to ture of old letters in him, could fail to share the outbreak of the war, of Sir William's li- Osier's enthusiasm, his inveterate and almost brary at Norham Gardens, Oxford, had tail dangerous exaltation in the presence of rare that he could do in just keeping the books to- volumes. He had Petrarch's reverence for great gether, for the owner had a habit of allocating books. He loved to see them in reverent hands, his best possessions where they could be best in fair estate and comely, yet he loved the used, on the principle that books belong to those "ragged veterans" as well as Lamb did. who prize them most. You would say that a The range of his taste at this period, like general thaw and dissolution of his library was in the breadth of his learning, was astounding. He process, but'no, quite the reverse. Through could say with his mentor, Sir Thomas Browne, this kind of loss comes increase. "I am of a constitution so general, that it con- His collection of the works of the Founders of sorts and sympathizeth with all things." His British medicine had "reached a large degree province as a collector lay somewhere between of perfection" in 1901, and in the Franklin the early manuscript period and the literature Street house in Baltimore were richest stores on anesthesia—an illimitable expanse—but his of source-books, association books and classics, day was by no means at the meridian when he Greek and Latin—waiting for the evaluation began to beat its bounds. He soon laid Europe which the Chief would put upon them Saturday under tribute. From Poland and Spain and evening. But, this library was a modest one, the boot of Italy, and little-searched corners, we are told, when compared with the one that unknown to those who tramp the main-travelled he gathered around him after his removal to ways of bookdom, Sir William received his Oxford. corded bales of Gothic, Bastard, and Black letter His old Baltimore pupils and friends, return- with mysterious regularity. At the same time ing home from the pilgrimage to No. 13 Nor- that he thus eluded the German booksellers, ham Gardens, told strange tales of wondrous who had cornered the old book market abroad, new accessions to thronged shelves. The ' ' ' ' library, he let them know his desiderata, as though it grown too great for the lower floors, had went against the grain to keep his peculiar mounted the groaning stairs and bid fair to wants from them. The result was that he often have the run of the rooms above. Books every- bought of Baer, the Rosenthals, Halle, and where, invading all the premises. So much as well Hiersemann, as from Rahir, Voynich, for the mass, which, after all, need not detain and Olschki. He knew them even for all, snuffy us, Queens, All Souls, and Christs are near old Symnes, the expatriated Englishman, whose by, and the Tarpoian mass of books in the Bod- Rue des Beaux Arts cramped boutique, in ley, fifteen hundred thousand of them, is a si- Paris yielded him material undiscoverable to lencer in this matter. As for quality, there other than his. to eyes Needless say that he main- were items, a number of them, in Sir William's tained close all relations with the London and collection, aside from his manuscripts, which Provincial booksellers. These connections were would make Pollard or Nicholson catch their not made for the supplying of his own needs breath—editions not to be found in the Bod- these means purely. By he largely catered to leian or British Museum—and when we've said the lean and medical libraries of our hungry that, we've said all as to the rarity of a His printed country. gifts to them are past number- volume. But behind all the particular excel- ing. Fortunately, no recording angel keeps lencies and fascinating bays and sub-divisions account of the wicked men in prices pay for the this particular library, is that ever fresh, books which they give to libraries or neces- radiant, sustained conception, the great plan, sitous and to their friends. scholars, Acquisi- fundamentally adhered to throughout half a for ends tion selfish is another matter—out- century of collecting, on which the master's li- raged spirits in heaven keep a double-entry go- brary was formed. To contrive to bring to- such ing against bibliomaniacs, for the heavens gether under one roof-tree the whole array of are set against hoarding. "Non mihi sed creators, interpreters, and transmitters of the aliis," not for me but for use of others, might medical and physical sciences, represented in

The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal as published by The New England Journal of Medicine. Downloaded from nejm.org at SANTA BARBARA (UCSB) on June 20, 2016. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. From the NEJM Archive. Copyright © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society. first editions, is an enormous undertaking. Ex- ever mourned so sincerely by such a host of pand this plan to embrace the idea of the friends. He was a many sided man with many inter-relation of all the sciences and then again ties and affiliations. In him the medical pro- expand it to a decorous and necessary purview fession in Canada, in the United States and in of all philosophy, history, and the humanities, Great Britain has; a common bond. insofar as, for spiritual purposes, they are seen When he left Montreal for Philadelphia he to be working with a common aim with the was only thirty-five, but he was held in such sciences, and we have reached a point with Os- affectionate remembrance by the teachers and ier from which to view the pregnant sources students of McGill that his first door plate was of the old order from which issue the new. obtained and placed among other treasures in Nothing short of these Pisgah-sights would the college building. He went to Philadelphia quite satisfy him. We have the prediction from a stranger, but to alter slightly the words of S. one who knows, that we will never cease to ad- Weir Mitchell's poem, he found there a second mire the noble plan on which this library was home, and in the practice of life's happiest art, predetermined and consciously formed. Indeed, he little guessed how readily he won the added one of the unique monuments in the field of friendship of an open heart, medical bibliography will be Sir William's cata- When he went to England to become Eegius logue raisonné of his library. This, if we are Professor of Medicine at Oxford he left behind privileged to see it in print at some future time, him a "continent of friends". Five hundred will far surpass anything else of the kind. Sir medical men from all parts of the country William had been working on this for some gathered at Delmonico's to sit with him at a time, and despite a thousand interruptions, farewell dinner. of it portions were complete at the time of his He was at Johns Hopkins when that hospital death. He had already issued that part which was opened, then the medical wonder of the relates to his vast collection on anesthesia, in New World, and studied the first patient ad- of the Proceedings the Royal Society. Carried mitted to the wards. Here he developed one of out. in that manner, the remaining sections of the best medical clinics in existence and in- his catalogue "would have been the most attrac- troduced far better methods of practical in- tive and informing contributions ever made to struction than the German clinics afforded, for medical none." Most bibli- bibliography, bar up to that time first-class clinics in the modern ographers have, in a supreme degree, "the gift sense were found only in Germany. He was of " if I use a infrigidation, may quotation thirty-nine years old when he went to Balti- him a recent address in the Bod- made by in more and here came to full fruition the seed an all-em- leian. Only by a big human touch, that had been planted in his fertile brain dur- can a mere census of books bracing sympathy, ing the previous twenty years. In 1892 he pub- even at work in stir the modern caddice-worm lished the first edition of that text-book which a We can well that Osier's library. imagine has been ever since the standard work of med- his beloved books will be a new catalogue of ical practice. Eagerly he must have awaited in rich and novel of his revealment. form, great that first class of undergraduate students in the aims and universal sympathies. humanizing fall of 1905. For six years he had had to con- tent himself with what he called the "dry husks" of graduate teaching. OSLER AS HIS STUDENTS KNEW HIM. The picture of Osier as he appeared to a of BY Joseph H. Pratt, M.D., Boston. student the early years has been faithfully drawn by Thomas R, Brown, a member of the Most men held in popular estimation are pioneer class at the Johns Hopkins Medical greatest at a distance, but Sir William Osier School. That was as he says a truly golden was one of those rare who are found to spirits age to those whose good fortune it was to be- in the nearer they are ap- grow greatness long to one of the early classes that received proached. No medical man ever received more inspiration and instruction for mind, heart and tributes of affection and regard from his pro- soul from this great teacher. Dr. Osier made his lifetime than did fessional brethren during his class feel that he was a fellow student; or Dr. Osier and certainly the death of none was as he himself styles it in one of his essays "a