Date Published:
January 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Sir William Osler

Osler, Sir William, Bart. (1849-1919), physician and author, was born at Bond Head, Upper Canada, on July 12, 1849, the youngest son of the Rev. Featherston Lake Osler and Ellen Free Pickton. He was educated at Trinity College School, Port Hope, at Trinity University, Toronto, at McGill University (M. D., 1872); and he studied in London, Berlin, and Vienna. From 1874 to 1884 he was on the staff of the medical school at McGill University; from 1884 to 1889 he was professor of clinical medicine at the University of Philadelphia; from 1889 to 1905 he was professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; and from 1905 to his death he was regius professor of medicine in the University of Oxford. He died at Oxford on December 29, 1919. In 1892 he married Grace Lindsee Revere, widow of Dr. S. W. Gross, of Philadelphia. He was an LL.D. of McGill University (1895), of Aberdeen University , (1898), of Edinburgh University (1898), of the University of Toronto (1899), of Yale University (1901), of Harvard University (1904), of Johns Hopkins University (1905); a D.C.L. of Trinity University (1902); and a D.Sc. of Oxford University (1904) and Leeds University (1910). In 1898 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1911 he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom.

He published numerous monographs and papers on medical subjects, including a work on The principles and practice of medicine (New York, 1892), which went into many editions; and he edited a medical encyclopedia entitled The system of medicine (7 vols., London, 1907-10). But his reputation rests chiefly on his addresses and less technical publications: Science and immortality (London, 1904), Aequanimitas, and other addresses ( London , 1904), Counsels and ideals (Oxford, 1905), Thomas Linacre Oxford, 1908), An Alabama student, and other essays (Oxford, 1908), and A way of life Oxford, 1914).

See H. Gushing, The life of Sir William Osler (2 vols., Oxford , 1925); E. G. Reid, The great physician ( Oxford , 1931); and Contributions to medical and biological research, dedicated to Sir William Osler . . . by his pupils and coworkers (2 vols., New York, 1919).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. V, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 401p., p. 68.