Three lines of evidence suggest that Sir Andrew Clark had a significant influence on William Osler's postgraduate training: (1) numerous references to Clark in Osler's textbook of medicine; (2) the similarity of Clark's and Osler's aphoristic messages for students; and (3) personal encounters, including Clark's reminiscence that he ‘had striven ten years for bread, ten years for bread and butter, and twenty years for cakes and ale’. Clark's meticulous approach to clinical problems, his work ethic and his enthusiasm for bedside teaching may have fostered or reinforced these same attributes in Osler. Osler honoured Clark's memory by helping Sir John MacAlister and others realize Clark's ambition to unite various London medical societies into a single organization, which, in 1907, became the Royal Society of Medicine.
References
1.
BarondessJA. A brief history of mentoring. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association1994; 106: 1–24.
2.
BlissM. Learning to see: Student years. In: BlissM, ed. William Osler: A Life in Medicine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999: pp. 36–79.
3.
BryanCS. Find mentors: The young person's friend. In: BryanCS, ed. Osler: Inspirations from a Great Physician. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997: pp. 59–81.
4.
CuleJ. Heroes and hero worship — The heroes of Sir William Osler, Journal of Medical Biography2000; 8: 52–9.
5.
Osler was not the first to describe the blood platelets, but he called attention to them at a time when most observers held them to be of little or no significance. See Conley CL. Osler as an experimental hematologist. In: BarondessJAMcGovernJPRolandCG, eds. The Persisting Osler: Selected Transactions of the First Ten Years of the American Osler Society. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press, 1985: pp. 169–72.
6.
RomanoTM. Making Medicine Scientific: John Burdon Sanderson and the Culture of Victorian Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002: p. 183.
7.
BrownGH. Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1826–1925 (Munk's Roll, Vol. 4). London: Royal College of Physicians, 1955: pp. 93–4.
8.
AllchinWH. Life of Sir Andrew Clark (manuscript). London: RCP MS 15, Royal College of Physicians Library.
9.
Obituary. Sir Andrew Clark, Bart. Lancet1893; ii: 1222–6.
10.
Obituary. Sir Andrew Clark, Bart. British Medical Journal1893; ii: 1055–62.
11.
ClarkAHadleyWJChaplinA. Fibroid Diseases of the Lung, Including Fibroid Phthisis. London: Charles Griffin, 1894.
12.
The ‘peculiar circumstances’ apparently consisted of his achieving a solid education and a good appointment despite the lack of a formal degree. The possibility that Clark's perceived limited life expectancy played a role cannot be excluded.
13.
The Lumleian lectures were endowed in 1581 by Lord Lumley and Richard Caldwell, MD (c. 1513–84), who was a Fellow of the College. The Croonian Lectures were named for William Croone, who died in 1684. Croone's will did not provide funds for them, but his widow honoured Croone's intent by providing funds in her own will, dated 1706, to be dispensed after the death of her second husband.
14.
GladstoneMrs (?1813–1900), born Catherine Glynne, was the wife of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98).
15.
ClarkA. A Bodleian Guide for Visitors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Reverend Andrew Clark, who was a native of Dollar, Clackmananshire, Scotland, had a long association with Lincoln College as follows: scholar (1876–9), appointment as a Fellow (1880), appointment as Chaplain (1884), and appointment as the Vicar of St Michael at the North Gate (1885), the city church of Oxford closely associated with Lincoln College. He also served as editor of the Oxford Register and was a member of the Oxford History Society. Osler, who was at Oxford from 1905 until his death in 1919 and who was intimately connected with the Bodleian Library, almost surely knew him; however, I am unaware of any correspondence between them.
16.
LongcopeWT. Random recollections of William Osler, 1899–1918. Archives of Internal Medicine1949; 84: 93–103.
17.
CushingH. The Life of Sir William Osler. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925: Vol. I, p. 100.
18.
OslerW. The Principles and Practice of Medicine. New York: D Appleton and Company, 1892: pp. 188, 221, 396, 421, 498, 507, 534, 572–3, 621, 623, 687, 695, 972.
19.
BryanCS. Appendix III. Osler's sources: A checklist of personal names referenced in the first edition of The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892). In: GoldenRL, ed. A History of William Osler's Principles and Practice of Medicine. Montreal: Osler Library, McGill University, and the American Osler Society, 2004: pp. 236–52.
20.
OslerW (op. cit. ref. 18): pp. 421, 687, 695.
21.
ThayerWS. Osler the teacher. In: ThayerWS, ed. Osler and Other Papers. Freeport, NY: Books for Library Series, 1931: pp. 1–5.
22.
ClarkA. Address Delivered to the Opening of the Ninety-Second Session of the London Hospital Medical College. London: Wyman & Sons, 1876.
23.
SilvermanMEMurrayTJBryanCS. The Quotable Osler. Philadelphia: American College of Physicians, 2003.
24.
RCP MS 712/172. London: Royal College of Physicians.
25.
OslerW. Internal medicine as a vocation. In: OslerW, ed. Aequanimitas, With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co, 1905: pp. 137–52.
26.
CushingH (op. cit. ref. 17): vol. I, p. 167.
27.
HarrellGT. Osler's practice. Bulletin of the History of Medicine1973; 47: 545–68.
28.
FyeWB. William Osler's departure from North America: The price of success. New England Journal of Medicine1989; 320: 1425–31.
29.
BlissM (op. cit. ref. 2): p. 117.
30.
RogersEJA. Personal reminiscences of the earlier years of Sir William Osler. In: AbbottME, ed. Sir William Osler Memorial Number. Bulletin No. IX of the International Association of Medical Museums and Journal of Technical Methods. Montreal, Canada: Privately printed, 1926: pp. 163–70.
31.
OslerW. The master-word of medicine. In: OslerW, ed. Aequanimitas, With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine. Philadelphia: P Blakiston's Son & Co, 1905: pp. 363–88.
32.
OslerW. A way of life. In: KeynesGL, ed. Selected Writings of Sir William Osler. London: Oxford University Press, 1951: pp. 237–49.
33.
LinforsEWNeelonFA. The case for bedside rounds. New England Journal of Medicine1980; 303: 1230–3.
34.
Anonymous. The London Hospital and Medical College: Presentation to Sir Andrew Clark. Lancet1889; ii: 129–30.
35.
Anonymous. Sir Andrew Clark's method of bedside teaching. Journal of the American Medical Association1892; 18: 208–9.
36.
SchäferE Sharpey. Reminiscence of Sir William Osler. In: AbbottME, ed. Sir William Osler Memorial Number. Bulletin No. IX of the International Association of Medical Museums and Journal of Technical Methods — Second Impression. Montreal, Canada: Privately printed, 1927: pp. 352–3.
37.
PierachCA. Was Osler verdeutsched? Archives of Internal Medicine1996; 156: 1502–4.
38.
CushingH (op. cit. ref. 17): vol. II, pp. 32–3, 35.
39.
MallochA. Sir William Osler at Oxford. In: AbbottME, ed. Sir William Osler Memorial Number. Bulletin No. IX of the International Association of Medical Museums and Journal of Technical Methods. Montreal, Canada: Privately printed, 1926: pp. 363–77.
