February 2019 AMERICAN OSLER SOCIETY Volume 19 - Issue 4 the Oslerian a Message from the President
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February 2019 AMERICAN OSLER SOCIETY Volume 19 - Issue 4 The Oslerian A Message from the President By Clyde Partin, Jr. Osler’s Death: His Enduring dead in that they died so young.” Per- President’s Message Legacy One Century Later haps this was a veiled metaphor for Pages 1-3 Revere’s death. “Death came peaceful- ly, as he had taught that it does to most Montreal Preview A trilogy of Oslerian anniver- saries begins to align in 2019. Osler people, at about 4.30 that afternoon,” Pages 4-5 th passed away 29 Dec 1919; The 49 An- was Bliss’s version. History of Medicine Essay niversary of the founding of the Ameri- Jeremiah Barondess provides the Pages 6-7 can Osler Society celebrates with a most detailed account of Osler’s slow descent to death, ravaged by post- AOS History meeting in Montreal; The Osler Library Pages 8-9 opened ninety years ago in May 1929. influenza complications. Osler had trav- Much has been documented regarding elled to Edinburgh in late September Poetry Osler’s final days and there has been but his trip home was derailed by a rail- Page 9 considerable contemplation about his way strike. Osler found himself in New- castle, 250 miles shy of Oxford. He lo- Opinion - Book Review life in the century following his passing. Pages 10-11 The most reflective of that out-pouring cated a car and driver and arrived home is in the final chapter, Osler’s Afterlife, 29 September, with a “severe head Looking Ahead of Michael Bliss’s 1999 book, William cold.” (Barondess) The illness, and as- Page 12 Osler: A Life in Medicine. Bliss chroni- sociated cough, proved persistent and cles the last illness in the twelve pages tenacious, prompting Osler to deposit that precede the seventeen pages that himself in bed. Detailed daily notes constitute his musings on Osler’s after- that Osler and his attending physician life. Cushing began the death vigil in Dr. A.G. Gibson penned, regarding the late September, in Osler’s biography, illness, are extant. (Gibson) “Never but writing, “Osler, meanwhile, in bed with one ending to these protracted influenza his cold . .” (Cushing) Three months cases in old age,” Osler sagely ob- and fifteen pages later, “The end came served. at 4.30 on the afternoon of December By 8 November, pleurisy had set 29th. Cushing, possibly fatigued from in, with Osler describing his own audi- his biographical labors, devotes a tidy ble friction rub, and Haemophilus influ- page and a half to the funeral service, enza was isolated from his sputum. ending with conjecture that Osler Tachycardia, tachypnea, fevers, and em- dreamt from a ‘watching chamber,’ la- pyema ensued, as did a white count of President menting many but especially the youth- 27K. (Photo 1) Thoracentesis was per- Clyde Partin, Jr. ful pupils of his who had died young, formed on 5 and 14 December. On 22 49th AOS President and “had known the affection and December, the right ninth rib was par- installed at the 2018 meet- warmth of the ‘Open Arms.’ – doubly tially resected, “opening a large cavity ing in Pittsburgh, PA. Please turn to next page The Oslerian Volume 19 - Issue 4 February 2019 Page 2 President’s Message (Continued from page 1) containing thick, malodor- Did he ever really die? “It is simply astound- ous, blood stained fluid.” ing. People come in here and talk about him as though Miserable from paroxysms he would soon walk in,” Grace observed. (Bliss; of coughing and vomiting, GRO) Cushing soon undertook his Herculean effort of he exsanguinated from the writing the Pulitzer prize-winning (1926) biography. surgical wound. Three Yet the tome was considered by many to be a months of illness, surgery, “plodding, reverential, year-by-year ‘life and letters’ . death, and then an autopsy . dense with half-edited chunks of Osler letters and by Gibson, all transpired in speeches.” (Bliss) The biography was successful but Osler’s bedroom at considered overly hagiographic and lengthy. The mil- Norham Gardens. The au- Photo 1: Temperature graph and lion word manuscript, chiseled to 600,000 words and topsy report, in addition to clinical notes from early December 1400 pages was twice as long as a biography of Christ the anticipated pulmonary 1919. Note Osler’s name is absent. that had just been published, some noted. Echoing findings, was notable for a Grace’s sentiments, the biography made “Osler speak left anterior descending lesion, and a scar on the right again.” The austere Baltimore sage, H.L. Mencken, pre-tibial area from a severe leg injury sustained in a had positive sentiments regarding Cushing’s effort, rugby game. To the end, Osler maintained a cheerful “The curious enchantment that he {Osler} worked up- demeanor, “often assuring visitors that he could ‘smell on all who had any sort of contact with him is visible the rose above the mould,’” quoting from Thomas on every page.” (Bliss) Hood’s poem, Farewell to Life. Libraries world-wide maintain Oslerian collec- In typical Osler industriousness, he read end- tions, but the majority of Osler’s books and papers, lessly while ill and “managed to write a review of a under the meticulous and loving guidance of Osler’s biography of Victor Horsley,” penned innumerable nephew, W.W. Francis, MD, (Photo 2) found their letters, and organized Revere’s library. In late Novem- way to the most enduring Oslerian monument, the ber, he sat for a photo in front of the fireplace. Osler Osler Library at McGill. Osler’s memory perseveres opined, “I’ve been watching this case for two months in other eponymous ways, in varying levels of promi- and I’m sorry I shall not see the post-mortem.” (Bliss) nence and obscurity. These include syndromes, dis- In early December, overcome by lassitude he eases, a ship (the S.S. William Osler, eventually “dictated his will and gave instructions about his scrapped in Portland, Oregon in 1969), parasites, and books, his autopsy, and the disposition of his brain,” a postage stamps (Rosencrantz/ triad of items that likely had never before been assem- Bryan). As of 2011, twenty- bled in the same sentence. He began to quote lines nine known societies, in hon- from Poe’s For Annie and “there was always a plate or of Osler, had come into of lemon slices beside him.” The Christmas Eve tradi- existence. (Partin/Lella) The tion of Osler reading to Revere, Milton’s Hymn to first of those was the Osler Christ’s Nativity, was attempted but Osler fell asleep. Club of London, convening in Four days later, his vital signs deteriorating, he uttered 1928, whose objectives in- his last words, requesting of a physician friend, T. cluded “keeping green the Archie Malloch, who helped Gibson care for Osler, memory of Sir William “Hold up my head.” Photo 2: W.W. Francis near the Osler.” (Franklin)Thousands Osler lay in state in his bedroom before being Vernon plaque in the Osler of articles written about him transported to Christ Church for the New Year’s Day Niche. (Photo by K. McLennan) also serve to perpetuate his Funeral Service. Bliss cryptically notes “an unusually legacy as does The Persisting Osler series, now at high number of the mourners were women.” Music at four volumes. the service included Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, a The duo of Osler’s brain and astral self pro- Latin rendition of O quanta qualia, and ended with vides the Oslerian legacy with its most tantalizing Mendelssohn’s Funeral March.* Osler’s favorite edi- contributions. Rodin and Key point out that Osler’s tion of Religio Medici rested on his coffin - the same brain is extant in two ways: (1) the products of his copy would reside upon Grace Osler’s purple pall in brain, namely his extensive medical works and his lit- 1928. The next day the body, accompanied by Mal- erary essays; (2) his actual brain, preserved at the loch, went by hearse to the Golders Green Crematori- Wistar Institute of Anatomy in Philadelphia. In 1892, um. The ashes made their way back to Christ Church Osler and others formed the Anthropologic Society, and eventually to the Osler Library at McGill. agreeing to “bequeath their brains.” (Rodin) As re- Continued on page 3 The Oslerian Volume 19 - Issue 4 February 2019 Page 3 President’s Message (Continued from page 2) quested, Dr. A.G. Gibson harvested Osler’s brain and of secular worship, placed at the foot of the Osler entrusted it to Thomas McCrae, who hand-delivered it plaque a bouquet of flowers and a card asking for to the Institute 17 May 1920. In 1959, the Canadian Osler’s blessing in his studies.” (Findel/Bliss) neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, in exchange for giving Several decades ago, I had the honor of caring a talk, was allowed to transport Osler’s brain to the for a lady who had married into the extended Osler Montreal Neurological Institute for microscopic ex- family. One day her son came with her to an appoint- amination. Their neuropathologist, G. Mathieson, ment. His resemblance to William Osler was startling. found no “significant pathologic changes.” The brain As Grace had mentioned, I felt as if Osler had just was returned to Wistar, to reside in Oslerian perpetui- walked into the room. ty. As for the astral self, Osler, in an EYD essay, Burrowings of a Bookworm, mused about placing a “few books in an alcove of a fire-proof library in some institution that I love; at the end of the alcove an open fire-place and a few easy chairs, and over the mantel piece an urn with my ashes and my bust or my por- trait, through which my astral self .