Description:

Osler, M.D. William 1849 - 1919

Founding Father of modern medicine William Osler writes a lovely ALS.

Single page ALS on stationery stock, 3.75" x 6". Dated "28.xii.18" (December 28, 1918), and signed by William Osler as "Wm Osler". Single center fold, tiny edge nick, else near fine

A lovely ALS, penned only a year before his death in December of 1919. McGill Library shows numerous exchanges by letter between Olser and his correspondent Proctor.

Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the "Father of Modern Medicine" and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope". Osler's greatest influence on medicine was to insist that students learn from seeing and talking to patients and the establishment of the medical residency. The latter idea spread across the English-speaking world and remains in place today in most teaching hospitals. Through this system, doctors in training make up much of a teaching hospital's medical staff. The success of his residency system depended, in large part, on its pyramidal structure with many interns, fewer assistant residents and a single chief resident, who originally occupied that position for years. While at Hopkins, Osler established the full-time, sleep-in residency system whereby staff physicians lived in the administration building of the hospital. As established, the residency was open-ended, and long tenure was the rule. Doctors spent as long as seven or eight years as residents, during which time they led a restricted, almost monastic life.

He wrote in his essay "Books and Men" that: "He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all." His best-known saying was: "Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis," which emphasizes the importance of taking a good patient history.

Around the time that he wrote this letter, Osler had been offered the prestigious Regis professorship of medicine at Oxford University and a staff appointment at the Radcliffe Infirmary. The invitation, which was issued by King Edward VII, reflected the international scale of Osler's reputation. He enthusiastically accepted the appointment and immediately assumed a decisive role in the Oxford medical community.

With no students to teach (Oxford medical students did their clinical work in London), Osler focused his attention on patients and postgraduate students. He continued to pursue reforms in clinical teaching and spent a great deal of time in the wards of Radcliffe Infirmary visiting patients.

His short but warm ALS is shown in full below:

"Dear Miss Proctor,

Greetings + best wishes for 1919!

Thanks for your card received this morning.

I hope you are keeping well. It is many years now since your old trouble.

What an encouragement your case has been!

Best wishes

Wm Osler".

A lovely autographed letter by a Founding Father of modern medicine!

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