Lot 148
Osler, M.D. William 1849 - 1919 William Osler pens a thank you note in 1909, at the time of the opening of the Hopkins Psychiatric Hospital
A four page ALS on light card stock, 4" x 5.75". All pages blank but for the first page, with notes in another's hand on the second leaf in graphite of "Opening Phipps Clinic". Dated "Tuesday", with small pencil notes or "Mon/May24, 1909". Signed by William Osler as "Wm. Osler". Expected folds, glue adhesions and small paper shearing to the last page, else near fine.
A lovely thank you letter written by William Osler to "Mrs. Williams" , thanking her for the "flowers", and dated May 25, 1909. A period when Osler had left John's Hopkins, to become the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. However this was also the period when Osler's founding Hospital, John's Hopkins, once again wished to be the first to come to the forefront of another research field, that of the field of Psychiatry. An area of medicine that was rapidly evolving and was coming into its own awakening. Psychiatry was coming into its own as a medical specialty by the early 20th century. As Sigmund Freud's and Carl Jung's theories of the subconscious were catching fire in Europe, others were intent on determining the causes of insanity, learn more about the brain's anatomy, and whether biological factors and mental problems were inseparable.
As Psychiatry was coming to the forefront, both in medicine but also in concept, John Hopkins wanted to blaze the path, championing a new concept in medicine once again, and become a leader in this field by being the first to build a large, attractive Psychiatric clinic which would be attached to their hospital. This would be the antithesis of the then current conditions in American's turn-of-the-century insane asylums, described as horrifying in the just released book called "A Mind That Found Itself, written in 1908 by Clifford Beers", a recovered psychiatric patient who had described in his book the horrifying conditions in American's turn-of-the-century insane asylums.
Although Osler was not directly involved with the new hospital/clinic, the note on the thank you card made reference to him being present for the formal conceptual launching of the Clinic which was in 1909. The John's Hopkin's Psychiatric clinic was funded by Henry Phipps, a Philadelphia steel magnate and one-time partner of Andrew Carnegie, who had been a major benefactor to Hopkins, and providing the $1.5 million seed money to build the elegant clinic included marble floors, gardens, porches, fireplaces, and even a pipe organ in a spacious auditorium. An entirely different mind-set about mental disorders than the asylums of the day, heralding in the dawn of research, patient care and medicine which brought psychiatry to its place of study today.
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