Centennial ties: Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) and William Osler (1849–1919) on Andreas Vesalius (1514

Abstract

Andreas Vesalius is often regarded as the founding father of modern anatomical study. The quincentennial anniversary of his birth – 31 December 2014 – has been very widely commemorated, and it is the purpose of this article to contrast these celebrations with what happened during the Vesalius quatercentenary year of 1914. More specifically, we look at how Vesalius was perceived a century ago by examining his influence on two of western medicine’s most iconic gentlemen – Harvey Williams Cushing (1869–1939) and his larger than life mentor, Sir William Osler (1849–1919).

Keywords

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564)quincentennial Harvey Cushing (1869–1939)Willam Osler (1849–1919)The Vesalius Quatercenetary

’Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our Forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from the passed world. ¹

– Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682),

1 May 1658

Introduction

As the quincentennial year of Vesalius’ birth coincides with the centennial anniversary of World War I, so the Vesalius quatercentennial corresponded with that most woeful period of human conflict. It was the general imbalance of power across Europe towards the close of the nineteenth century that gradually broke out into the deadly war, and Vesalius’ country of birth – although a neutral one in the armed conflict – was amongst the first to be attacked. The fury with which German soldiers raided Belgium on their way to France was epitomised in their shameless and savage pillaging of Louvain, which commenced on the evening of 25 August 1914² and ravaged the town and its people for a full five days. In this time, the historical library at the University of Louvain – where Vesalius had studied between 1530 and 1533 – was burned beyond recognition, destroying with it, an irreplaceable collection of medieval manuscripts and incunabula. For such reasons, planned Vesalius quatercentenary celebrations in Belgium had to be abandoned.

The Vesalius quatercentenary

It was on the clever instigation of Professor Paul Francois Xavier Heger (1846–1925) of the University of Brussels (Figure 1) that official plans to formally commemorate the Vesalius quatercentenary were first actuated in the year 1912.³ In addition to the regular ceremonials that mark such events, Heger had in mind putting together a permanent scholarly tribute in the form of a well-researched book – a Liber Memorialis as he called it.⁴ He persuaded his Belgian colleagues to join him in this endeavour and successfully organised a highly qualified executive committee to more closely consider the proposition. Members of the committee gracefully approved the proposal, and the project was further backed by both the Minister of Science and Art, and Adolphe Max (1869–1939), then Mayor of the City of Brussels. Perhaps the most noteworthy authority called on by Heger to assist in the project – certainly to English speaking readers – was the distinguished Victorian art critic and iconographer, Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann (1858–1948), a man already well known for his landmark work on The Portraits of Shakespeare (1906–7).⁵ Spielmann was a temporary resident in Brussels at the time and ‘was honoured by [the] invitation to undertake the section of the Iconography of Vesalius’.⁶ His manuscript was made ready for publication well before the assigned date, but, as with the contributions of other authors, the rise of the war hopelessly suspended any real chance of printing the research. Spielmann’s work was showcased by Heger in August of 1920⁷ at the 1st Congress on the History of Healing held in Antwerp, and was finally printed with the assistance of Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853–1936) in Heger’s final year (Figure 2).

Figure 1.

Professor Paul Heger (1846–1925), the driving force behind Vesalius quatercentenary commemorations in Brussels; here pictured in his office in 1913. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine.

Figure 2.

Right – Spielmann's Iconography remains one of the great contributions to modern Vesalian literature. Author's copy depicted. Left – Marion Spielmann perusing what appears to be the same work in 1927. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Harvey Cushing on Vesalius

The establishment in 1912 of quatercentenary celebrations for Vesalius in Brussels, greatly enthused Harvey Williams Cushing (1869–1939), one of Vesalius’ greatest supporters across the Atlantic and a rising star in the world of neurological surgery. Now considered the Father of modern neurosurgical techniques, Cushing had then been recently appointed to the Mosley Professorship of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and had just published his first ever monograph – The Pituitary Body and its Disorders.⁸ Parallel to his career as a surgeon, Cushing first developed a taste for Vesalius in his early 30s, having bought Moritz Roth’s biography⁹ in the year 1900.¹⁰ Not long after that, his new master, mentor, and neighbour, William Osler (1849–1919), convinced him to start collecting Vesalius’ works and other historical items. On 31 May 1903, Cushing wrote to a friend:

Dr. Osler has started me on a Vesalius essay. He has turned over to me pro tempore a stunning copy of the ‘De humani coporis fabrica’ with the famous plates etc. I want very much to collect photographs of the various portraits and as many engravings of V. himself as possible so if you run across any of them in your perusal of catalogues or see a notice of the sale of any of his books I wish you would let me know. ¹¹

It was not long after writing this letter that Cushing had compiled his first lecture on ‘The Books of Vesalius’. He presented this talk on 16 December 1903 at Osler’s Book and Journal Club of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland¹¹ – a group of 60 or so practitioners who met quarterly to discuss historical topics.¹² As the letter suggests, the iconography of Vesalius also greatly interested Cushing, and by 1907, he had been in contact with Spielmann about the subject.¹³ Later on in 1919, Cushing directly sought Spielmann’s opinion in London on the Ryman portrait which he had just purchased in Oxford. Although initially thought to have been the Donaldson portrait – with which Cushing disagreed – Spielmann later clarified that it was in fact another copy of the original Louvre portrait by Calcar.¹⁴ On 27 April 1926, Cushing lectured on his own and other Vesalian portraits before the Harvard Medical Society.¹³ He would have been well acquainted with Spielmann’s Iconography by that stage – his own copy of the book was heavily annotated – but did not hesitate to swap an extra copy of the work for a more desirable Vesalian item he found in the possession of his bibliographical comrade and friend, Edward Clark Streeter (1847–1947) – whose home Cushing attended regularly for weekly medical historical meetings.¹⁵

Cushing’s quatercentenary contributions

In the lead up to quatercentenary celebrations in Brussels, Harvey Cushing had himself been in contact with Paul Heger. He had written directly to Heger on 14 October 1912 thanking him for an informative Vesalian pamphlet which he had just received, and discussed Osler and Karl Sudhoff’s (1853–1938) plans to organise a special session on Vesalius at the 17th International Medical Conference which was to be held in London the following year.¹⁶ Cushing had already been invited to give the opening Address in Surgery at the conference and wondered if he should present a report on the portraits of Vesalius. He ended up only speaking on much needed reforms in medical education,¹⁷ but a selection of Vesalian portraits were to be displayed in the exhibition of the Medical Historical Museum which had been organised by Henry Wellcome.¹⁸ William Osler, who presided over the Medical Section at the same conference, had also been in contact with Cushing about the quatercentenary celebrations in Brussels. A typeset letter written by Cushing to Osler from his offices at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston on 16 December 1913, relates well the duos involvement with Heger’s plans to celebrate the Vesalius quatercentenary:

Dear Sir William:-

I am glad to have heard from you and to know that you have possession of another copy of Maxwell's Vesalius … I cannot imagine a better place to put this extra copy than in Sudhoff's hands. I shall be interested to know what he says about the proposed re-issue. I have had a long letter from Heger, in which he tells me that they have determined to publish a memorial volume containing, first a series of the portraits, second of the medals, third a biography, fourth the three papers which will be read at the commemoration, and fifth a bibliography. We shall all look forward with interest to the publication of these things. My suggestion that I collaborate with him in putting together the portraits does not seem to have met with his approval, for he says that he has had the good fortune to find a Mr. M. H. Spielmann of London, who has made a collection for him of photographs of the twelve portraits. He wishes to know if the republication of the Tabulae Sex could in any way be merged with their memorial volume. He feels, however, that it would be a difficult thing to do, from several points of view, and particularly as the Government is going to subsidize the memorial volume, and he thinks that on the whole it would be better for us to republish the Tabulae Sex independently …

I am,

Ever Yours,

Harvey Cushing [Signed]. ¹⁹

Osler originally had the idea to reprint the exceptionally scarce Tabuale Anatomicae Sex (1538) of Vesalius in time for the quatercentenary celebrations in Brussels, but this plan would evidently not come to fruition²⁰ (vide infra). Cushing, on the other hand, had his own contributions in mind, and although his collaborative efforts were not needed by Heger in Brussels, he did write a foreword for Spielmann’s book when it was printed in 1925.²¹ More importantly, he seized the opportunity to do something meaningful at the upcoming 66th Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association which was to be held in Atlantic City in June of 1914.²² Presided over by Victor Clarence Vaughan (1851–1929), then Dean at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Michigan, Cushing and his close friend Streeter were responsible for the Exhibit Commemorating the Quarter-Centenary of the Birth of Vesalius, 1514–1914,²³ which was designed to ‘bring together the various editions of Vesalius and to follow for a space of two centuries the fortunes of his plates’.²⁴ Although the display was successfully arranged, it aroused little interest amongst the conference attendees, and the couple were left somewhat disillusioned when an aged practitioner mistook their Vesalius booth for a Vaseline dispensing station! Later in life, Cushing regularly recalled this unpredictable life event²⁵:

As December 1914 approached, my friend Dr. E. C. Streeter, who had a far better collection of books than I, proposed that we call attention to the date by an exhibit of Vesaliana for the spring meeting of the American Medical Association in Atlantic City. For this purpose we were allotted a booth and had a small pamphlet printed with a description of the books we had selected for display. It aroused little if any interest. We had arranged to alternate as showmen, Streeter in the morning hours, I in the afternoon. We met at lunch after the first morning and on my enquiring ‘How did it go?’ he replied, ‘Well, only one old codger stopped long enough to read the sign VESALIAN EXHIBIT and said, ‘Got any samples?’ Streeter asked ‘Samples of what?’ He pointed to the sign and said, ‘Samples of Vaseline, of course’. Sadder and wiser we returned to Boston with our ‘samples’ at the end of the week. ²⁶

Very much the same exhibit was reproduced more successfully later in the year when Cushing organised for a historical meeting of the Harvard Medical Society to take place at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital on the evening of Tuesday 8 December 1914.²⁷ Cushing opened the meeting himself with a brief account of Vesalius’ life and work before acknowledging the tragedy of the war which had prevented formal commemorations in Brussels. He then handed the podium over to Robert Montraville Green (1880–1955) – a historically inclined Boston gynaecologist and long-time Editor-in-Chief of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (forerunner of the New England Journal of Medicine)²⁸ – who proceeded to speak about the city of Louvain and its historical university. Green was followed by another famous doctor–editor, Lewis Stephen Pilcher (1845–1934) – the founder and first editor of the Annals of Surgery journal²⁹ – who spoke elegantly on The Vesalian Spirit before handing over to Cushing once again. Cushing closed the session with an elaborate discussion on the iconography of Andreas Vesalius and illustrated portraits with state-of-the-art lantern slides for all attendants to see. Fittingly, these commemorative addresses were printed in Green’s journal on 31 December 1914²⁷ – Vesalius’ 400th birthday.

Death by Vesaliana

Long after the quatercentenary of Andreas Vesalius’ birth had passed, Harvey Cushing continued to devote himself to the Father of Modern Anatomy and his teachings. He made regular visits to Europe to see Vesalian sites and scholars, and laboured incessantly over the anatomist’s writings for decades to come. To his delight, he made a number of personal discoveries relating to Vesalius,³⁰ and was greatly satisfied at his correcting the Vesalian catalogue at the Bodleian Library during his 1912 visit to Oxford.³¹ For some 40 years, Cushing collected and consulted everything relating to Vesalius, and for at least half this time, he contemplated producing a conclusive Vesalian bibliography. In his final year, and in lieu of the forthcoming quatercentenary anniversary of the publication of the Fabrica (1543–1943), Cushing set aside time to compile his monumental Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius (Figure 3).³² He completed writing Chapters I to V and had partly drafted Chapters VI and VII by October of 1939, but as that date will tell, he was never to complete this labour of love. In a legend making moment on the evening of 3 October 1939, Harvey Cushing was seized in an attack of sub-sternal chest pain brought on by shifting a heavy folio volume of Vesalius’ works.³³ He was admitted to hospital the following day and died with a failing heart in the early hours of 7 October 1939 at 2:45am. For a man who had dedicated more than half his life to pursuing Vesalius and Vesaliana, the mode of his death remains an intriguing one. Thankfully, his bio-bibliography was finalised and edited by his close colleagues and friends – namely John Farquhar Fulton (1899–1960) – so that it was ready for printing in 1943. As with Spielmann’s Iconography, it remains an important and lasting contribution to modern Vesalian literature.

Figure 3.

Left – Cushing's Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius was published posthumously. Author's copy depicted. Right – Harvey Cushing in his home library in New Haven. Courtesy of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

Harvey Cushing’s authority as a Vesalian expert was perhaps best surmised by the great London antiquarian bookseller and scholar Ernst Philip Goldschmidt (1887–1954), who sold Cushing many rare volumes and related the following anecdote regarding his distinguished client in a talk given to the historical section of the Royal Society of Medicine in January of 1945:

Here was one of the greatest surgeons of our epoch, the acknowledged master of all the intricacies of the convolutions of the human brain, who would question me on a problem of early printing with the modesty and eagerness of a fourth-form schoolboy. But when he spoke about Vesalius, about the relationship of the Tabulae sex to the Fabrica, when he discussed with me the mysterious appearance of the rudiments of the China-Root Epistle in a French Galen printed at Tours in 1545, then his tone was that of authority, he knew that he knew, he knew that he had himself examined all the evidence available, and that, whether his opinion was right or wrong, there was nothing to be said in our present state of knowledge that he was not familiar with. ³⁴

William Osler on Vesalius

If Harvey Cushing is to be admired for his work on Vesalius, then William Osler (1849–1919) – Cushing’s close friend and life-long mentor – should be equally evoked for instilling in his student a love for classical medical literature and the humanities. Cushing first strictly came under Osler’s spell when he moved in next door to him at No. 3 West Franklin St. Baltimore in October of 1901.³⁵ Then a recently qualified surgeon from Johns Hopkins, Cushing was given free access to Osler’s medical library and became one of three fellow ‘latch-keyers’ – a group of juniors associates who were given keys to access Osler’s home and library as they pleased.³⁶ Osler inspired Cushing to start collecting his own books and in the fullness of time, both men were to amass especially impressive libraries. Osler’s own collection, which was to be donated to his alma mater at McGill University, counted well over 7700 items, and today makes up the Osler Library of the History of Medicine – Canada’s foremost medical historical library. The catalogue to Osler’s library – the Bibliotheca Osleriana – lists some 22 primary works of Vesalius alongside some 34 commentaries, and 12 other related listings.³⁷ In this collection, Vesalius’ works are given quite some preference with regards to their categorisation within the ‘Bibliotheca Prima’ section of the library.³⁸ Osler’s original description pertaining to his own first edition entry on the Fabrica comments that ‘copies are numerous and very often appear in sale catalogues at prices ranging from £10 to £20 varying with the condition’.³⁹ A conservative estimate of the modern value of this figure equates to around £2000.⁴⁰ Today, first editions of the Fabrica are priced anywhere in the range of £50,000 to £250,000!⁴¹

Osler and the Fabrica

When writing the introduction to his catalogue, Osler noted the following:

For some years Dr. Harvey Cushing and I had bought everything of Vesalius that was offered. One evening we had six copies of the first edition (1543) on exhibition. With the cash in pocket the book is impossible to resist, and I have distributed six copies to libraries. Forgetting what I had done, I took out a copy in 1907 to McGill, and showed it with pride to Dr. Shepherd, the librarian, who pointed out in one of the show-cases a very much better example presented by me some years before! Thinking it would be a very acceptable present to the Boston Library Association (in which I had a personal interest through Dr. James Chadwick and Dr. E.H. Brigham), I took the volume to Dr. Farlow, who looked a bit puzzled and amused. ‘Come upstairs’, he said: and there in a case in the Holmes room, spread open at the splendid title-page was the 1543 edition and, on a card beneath it, ‘The gift of Dr. Osler’. I had better luck at New York, where the volume found a resting-place in the Library of the Academy of Medicine. ⁴²

William Osler’s bibliomania bemused even himself, but thankfully, an accurate record of these dealings has been written for us to consider. According to Cushing’s 1925 Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Osler, it was on 7 July 1903 that Osler wrote back home to Baltimore from the Island of Guernsey, telling Cushing how:

I have bagged two 1543 Fabricas!’ Tis not a work which should be left on the shelves of a bookseller. ⁴³

A week later on 25 July he added:

Besides the two copies of the ’43 edition of the De Humani corporis fabrica I have just ordered a third. We cannot have too many copies in America and no Medical Library is complete without one. ⁴⁴

The fate of these books was later told by Cushing in his bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, in which he claims that the best copy was inscribed to Lewellys Franklin Barker (1867–1943) – a Professor of Anatomy at the University of Chicago and Osler’s future successor at Johns Hopkins – as a wedding present, whereas another good copy was swapped with an inferior Fabrica in Cushing’s possession – Cushing had been given this copy earlier in the year (1903) by his close colleague and friend William George MacCallum (1874–1944).⁴⁵ Osler’s generosity is marked by the fact that he donated multiple copies of the Fabrica to universities and state libraries all across the country. These included the Boston Medical Library, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Maryland State Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, the Medical Faculty at McGill University and the University of Missouri Medical Department.⁴⁶ Years later in 1909, when living in England as Regius Professor of Physic at Oxford, he once again told how he sanctified his fee by buying three copies of Vesal, 2^nd edition, fine one for myself, a 1^st for McGill and another for the Frick Library.⁴⁷ As above related, Osler had already sent McGill a copy of the same book, but this time he wrote a lengthy dedication which ended with the inscription:

I am glad to be able to send this beautiful copy of the first edition to the library of my old school, in which anatomy has always been studied in the Vesalian spirit – with accuracy and thoroughness. ⁴⁸

– William Osler. Rome 9 March 1909.

In the year leading up to the Vesalius quatercentenary, in April of 1913, Osler delivered his Silliman lectures on The Evolution of Modern Medicine at Yale University. Although brief references to Vesalius were made in many other writings of his, Osler devoted a substantial section of these lectures to the Father of Modern Anatomy. His aged opinion of the Fabrica is to be quoted verbatim:

The worth of a book, as of a man, must be judged by results, and, so judged, the ‘Fabrica’ is one of the great books of the world, and would come in any century of volumes which embraced the richest harvest of the human mind. In medicine, it represents the full flower of the Renaissance. As a book it is a sumptuous tome – a worthy setting of his jewel – paper, type and illustration to match, as you may see for yourselves in this folio – the chef d'oeuvre of any medical library. ⁴⁹

Osler and the Tabulae Anatomicae Sex

Soon after taking up the Regius Professorship at Oxford in May of 1905, William Osler jointly took on the most agreeable task of becoming a Curator to the Bodleian Library.⁵⁰ For a bibliophile as avid as he, this was one of his favourite complimentary appointments at Oxford. Osler used his privileges wisely, and in the second half of 1909, he had been in correspondence with the Scottish philanthropist Sir John Stirling Maxwell (1866–1956) about his father’s exceptionally rare first edition copy of Vesalius’ Tabulae Anatomicae Sex, which was first published in April of 1538. Since there were only two first edition copies in existence – the other being at St. Mark’s Library in Venice – Osler asked for the original to be sent in to the Bodleian for inspection.⁵¹ Sir John’s father, Sir William Sterling Maxwell (1818–1878), had had the foresight to reprint 30 facsimile copies in 1874, and so Sir John promptly sent over one of the reproductions as well. On the evening of 10 August 1909, Harvey Cushing – then a visitor of Osler’s in Oxford – went to the Bodleian with Osler to see the new arrivals. He recorded what happened in his diary:

Aug.10th pm. Barker turns up to dinner and afterwards … Dr. O. and I soon slipped off to the Bodleian to see the Stirling-Maxwell Tabulae Sex. He had written to several Stirling-Maxwells to try and get trace of them, for Sir William’s possession of them and the 30 reproductions was known but no one has seemed to know of the whereabouts of any of the originals. With greatest promptitude Sir John had sent the original to the Bodleian for inspection and an accompanying one of the copies – the reproductions of which are rather disappointing. The originals are bound in a sumptuous red morocco elephantine folio, the plates set in to much larger pages: with a book-plate specially for the work about a foot square. The plates are most interesting – the two circulations according to Galen separately shown – vena ad renem &c – We were much excited and I took about two rolls of snapshots of the Prof. of Med. for Barker happened in with another roll of films in the nick of time. May they turn out well!!”⁵²

Looking at the images today (Figure 4), we can certainly say they turned out well, but what is more, they capture a rare and exciting moment in modern medical history. Osler would have greatly enjoyed inspecting Vesalius’ rare publication that evening, and as it turns out he had a lot to do with the redistribution of the Stirling-Maxwell reprints. On the following day, he wrote to Robert Fletcher (1823–1912) of the Surgeon General’s Library:

Dear Fletcher:

Figure 4.

William Osler (left) and Lewellys Barker inspecting Stirling-Maxwell's rare first edition of Vesalius' Tabulae Anatomicae Sex (Six Anatomical Tables, 1538). Picture taken by Harvey Cushing on the evening of 10 August 1909 in the Selden End of Oxford's prestigious Bodleian Library. Courtesy of the McGill Library William Osler Photo Collection, CUS_064-090_P.

I have asked Sir John Stirling Maxwell to send to the Surgeon-General's Library one of his few remaining copies of his father's reprints of the rare Tabulae Sex of Vesalius. Of the original only two copies are known, of the reprints 28 copies. If, as is hardly possible, the library may have secured one of the reprints, please hand over this duplicate to the Library of the Johns Hopkins University. Sir John Stirling Maxwell had only six copies left, one of which I told him that the Washington Library certainly should have.

I hope you are better.

Sincerely yours,

Wm. Osler. ⁵¹

Stirling-Maxwell’s copy of the Tabulae Sex remained in Oxford for many years, and when Cushing revisited the Bodleian with Osler on the morning of the latter’s 63rd birthday – 12 July 1912 – he commented how ‘Dr. O. still retains the Stirling-Maxwell Tab. Sex. Some talk of reproducing them again’.⁵³ No doubt Cushing was referring to Osler’s intention to reprint the anatomical tables in time for the Vesalius quatercentenary celebrations in Brussels, but as already mentioned, this could not be done due to the outbreak of the war. Moll and Sudhoff in Leipzig appreciated Osler’s plan to reproduce the work and did so themselves in 1920.⁵⁴

In his biography of Osler, Cushing claims that the images of Osler in the Bodleian were taken in July of 1912. Judging from his own diary record given above, and another declaration given in his bio-bibliography of Vesalius,⁵⁵ it is fair to say that he was mistaken in this statement. Cushing loved visiting Osler in Oxford and did so on numerous occasions. It is not surprising then, that he might confuse certain facts relating to his visits. During his July 1912 visit, the two revelled over Vesaliana in Osler’s home at 13 Norham Gardens, and so it was not long after the budding neurosurgeons arrival, that Lady Osler wrote to Cushing’s wife Kate telling her how: ‘Our two Vesalius lunatics are deep in the book shelves … how I wish you were here’.⁵⁶

Restocking Louvain

The attacks on Louvain in August of 1914 would have been a sorry blow for admirers of Vesalius worldwide, and the destruction of the university library was a great loss to the city. Sir William Osler, who had himself thought of attending the Brussels celebrations with Cushing, was viscerally distraught with the attacks – ‘What a cursed act of vandalism to destroy Louvain!’ he reportedly lamented.⁵⁷ Osler’s respect for Louvain and Vesalius is expressed in a letter he wrote to the Shakespearian scholar Alfred William Pollard (1859–1944) on 2 September 1914, in which he proposes to supply aid to the stricken university:

Do you think we should do anything about the Louvain outrage in the way of sending an official letter of sympathy; and when matters quiet down I am going to suggest that we help them in a small way in the restoration of the library. I would like to undertake with some friends to replace the books of Vesalius who perhaps after Erasmus is the greatest name on their lists ….⁵⁸

Osler’s later involvement in the refurbishment is reflected in a letter he wrote to The Lancet on behalf of the committee in charge of restocking the library at Louvain. Written in his final months of life – on 9 June 1919 – the communication calls upon readers to assist in supplying a given list of medical and scientific periodicals.⁵⁹

Some years into the war, Osler would indirectly face his own calamity in Vesalius’ homeland when his only living child, Edward Revere Osler (1895–1917), was killed moving heavy artillery in the Ypres salient.⁶⁰ Circumstance had it that Harvey Cushing was stationed nearby and he came down at once to attend to his mentor’s dying son.⁶¹ The rest of the story is well known; Revere died the next morning from his wounds and his parents were left heart broken. Sir William died two years later during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919.

The lasting impression that both Cushing and Osler left on the medical world was elegantly told by the latter’s worshipful cousin-nephew, William Willoughby Francis (1878–1959), who had lived with both men during their Baltimore days on West Franklin Street. Note the special reference to Vesalius:

I wonder if two adjacent houses, with a couple of boards knocked out of the intervening backyard fence … can ever, before or since, have sheltered such a pair of congenial geniuses, so useful, hard-working, stimulating, informative, Vesaliolatrous, and withal so exuberant, cheery, witty and playful.⁶²

A quintessential quincentennial

Considering the tragedies that unfolded around the quatercentenary year of Vesalius’ birth, we can confidently assert that Brussels has been in a better position to celebrate the Vesalius quincentenary this year. By any measure, the response to the anniversary has been remarkable, and over the past 12 months or so, an overwhelming array of commemorative events have taken place in honour of Andreas Vesalius’ 500th birthday all over the western world.⁶³ From library exhibitions to anatomical art, plays to poetry, presentations to publications, Andreas Vesalius has enjoyed like no other, the full gamut of commemorative creativity. In September of 2014, doctors, medical historians and artists joined forces to show their appreciation for the Father of Modern Anatomy at an international conference held in Zakynthos⁶⁴ – where Vesalius died aged 49 – and an increasingly diverse array of symposia, independently organised events, documentary shorts and video tributes⁶⁵ continue to crop up even to this day. The timely re-publication by Karger of the New Fabrica⁶⁶ in an English translation by Daniel Garrison and Malcolm Hast has given this generation access to Vesalius’ work in a way that Cushing and Osler could only dream of, and so the original author of this sumptuous tome lives on. Attempts to revive more contemporary personalities, no matter their stature or significance, have effectively been dwarfed by these celebrations, and it surely is a triumph for the humanities to witness how much a single man’s work can move individual human beings generations apart.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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. Harvey Cushing: a biography, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1946, pp. 230–230. No further details are given about this letter. The comment relating to Cushing’s lecture are given on the same page.

12.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 567–567. In a letter written on 2 November 1901, Osler asks his colleague Francis Randolph Packard (1870–1950) to present at his Book and Journal Club. The original letter is registered as CUS417/97.83, Fonds number P417, in the McGill Library William Osler Letter Index.

13.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, p.530. Fulton also comments on Cushing’s preface to Spielmann’s iconography and a lecture he later gave on Vesalian portraits.

14.

Spielmann MH. Op. cit. Portraits in Oil, 16. Boston, MA. In the Collection of Dr. Harvey Cushing, 1925, pp.75–77. In a very detailed rebuttal given from pp.59–72, Spielmann methodically disproves the assumption that the original Louvre portrait by Calcar is actually of Vesalius. It is officially listed as ‘Portrait of a Man Unknown’. This finding may have upset Cushing.

15.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, pp.529–530.

16.

P417, Harvey Cushing Fonds, Osler Library MSS. Collection and Archives; Partial Inventory List, available online. Typeset letter, Cushing to Heger, 14 October 1912, Reference 6, Box F. The Vesalian Pamphlet referred to was written by Alphonse Wauters (1817–1898), a distinguished Belgian archivist and historian whose expertise had also been employed by Heger for the quatercentenary celebrations – see Spielmann (1925), footnote on p. xviii.

17.

Cushing

. Realignments in greater medicine: their effect upon surgery and the influence of surgery upon them. General address in surgery delivered to the XVIIth International Congress of Medicine, at its meeting in London on August 7, 1913, London: Oxford University Press, 1914.

18.

Wellcome HS. Handbook of the Historical Medical Museum, Organised by Henry S. Wellcome. XVIIth International Congress of Medicine, London, 1913, p.22, 81, 98.

19.

The William Osler Papers at The National Library of Medicine. Typeset letter from Harvey Cushing to William Osler dated 16 December 1913. Original Repository: Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University. Bibliotheca Osleriana BO #7651.

20.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 187, see footnote–187, see footnote.

21.

Cushing

Forewords III. In: Spielmann

(ed). The iconography of Andreas Vesalius (Andre Vesale), anatomist and physician, 1514–1564, London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, Ltd, 1925, pp. x–xi.

22.

American Medical Association. Full list of annual meetings and presidents, http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-history/annual-meetings-presidents.page (2015).

23.

Streeter EC and Cushing H. Exhibit commemorating the quater-centenary of the birth of Vesalius. American Medical Association, Atlantic City, 22–26 June 1914. Streeter and Cushing privately issued this pamphlet for the occasion.

24.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, p.386.

25.

Bliss

. Harvey Cushing: A life in surgery, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 494–494.

26.

Cushing

Apologia. In: Cushing

(ed). A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York: Schuman’s, 1943, pp. xxii–xxii.

27.

[No Primary Author Listed], Green RM. Pilcher LS. Cushing H. The Quatercentenary of Andreas Vesalius, 1514 – December 31 – 1914. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 1914; 171: 995–1002.

28.

O'Leary

. Robert Montraville Green. N Engl J Med 1957; 256: 463–464.

29.

Jennings

. Memoir: Lewis Stephen Pilcher 1845–1934. Ann Surg 1935; 102: 793–797.

30.

Fulton

Preface. In: Cushing

(ed). A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York: Schuman’s, 1943, pp. vii–vii.

31.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, p.329. In describing a visit to the Bodelian with William Osler, Cushing’s diary says: ‘I had the great satisfaction in pointing out to the sub-librarian that their darn catalogue was wrong for the 1^st item catalogued as a Borgarutius of 1552 proved to be the pocket edition of Vesal: Lugduni Ap. Joan Tornaesium 1552’..

32.

Cushing

. A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York: Schuman’s, 1943. Only 800 copies were printed.

33.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, pp.712–713.

34.

Goldschmidt

. A doctor and his books: Harvey Cushing and his library. Recollections of Harvey Cushing and His Book-Collecting. J Hist Med 1946; 1: 229–234. Quote taken from page 230 of the printed article. A larger excerpt is quoted by Fulton on pages 695–696 of his Cushing biography.

35.

Fulton JF. Op. cit., 1946, p.207. Osler lived at No. 1 West Franklin St.

36.

Ibid. pp.206–208. The ‘original’ latch-keyers were Henry Barton Jacobs (1858–1939) and William Sydney Thayer (1864–1932). The newly married Thayer moved out shortly after Cushing and Thomas Barnes Futcher (1871–1938) moved in.

37.

Osler

Francis

Hill

et al.

Bibliotheca Osleriana, a catalogue of books illustrating the history of medicine and science, collected, arranged, and annotated, By Sir William Osler, Bt. and bequeathed to McGill University, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1929, pp. 58–63. 781.

38.

Ibid. pp.xxv, xxxiii, 1. Osler divided his catalogue into three categories, somewhat in order of influence; Prima I, Secunda II, and Litteraria III. Items 1-1072 were included in the Prima category and presented a bio-bibliographical account of the evolution of science, including medicine. Vesalius primary works are listed as items 567–588.

39.

Ibid. p.58.

40.

Conversion made using online ‘Purchasing Power Calculator’ at www.measuringworth.com.

41.

These values are taken from recent online listings of the first edition of the Fabrica on Sotheby’s and Abebooks.

42.

Osler W, Francis WW, Hill RH, et al. Op. cit. Introduction, The Collecting of a Library, 1929, p.xxiii.

43.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol I, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 612–612. The same letter is referred to in Cushing’s Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius (p.xv) where its exact origin is given – the letter was ‘postmarked Guernsey’.

44.

Ibid. p.613. The same letter is referred to in Cushing’s Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius (pp.xv–xvi).

45.

Cushing

Apologia. In: Cushing

(ed). A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York: Schuman’s, 1943, pp. xv–xvi.

46.

Osler W, Francis WW, Hill RH, et al. Op. cit., 1929, Vesalius, entry 567, p.58. The copy Osler gave to Barker as a wedding present is also noted.

47.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 166–167.

48.

Osler W, Francis WW, Hill RH, et al. Op. cit., 1929. Vesalius, entry 567, p.59. Notably, it was not in 1907 that Osler presented this copy – as is mistakenly stated in ‘The Collecting of a Library’ – but in 1909 as is proven by the dated inscription. This copy was eventually passed on to the New York Academy of Medicine.

49.

Osler

. The evolution of modern medicine; A series of lectures delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921, pp. 154–154. The full section on Vesalius runs from pages 151–163.

50.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 4–4.

51.

[No authors listed] Editorial: Osler and the Six Anatomical Tables. Bulletin of The Medical Library Association 1943; 31: 200–202. The transcript of Osler’s letter to Dr. Fletcher is also found in this editorial. Harvey Cushing visited St. Mark's Library in Venice after leaving Oxford and took pictures of their copy of the Tab. Sex. on 7 September 1909. See: Fulton page 295; images after page 340.

52.

Fulton JF. Op. cit. 1946, p.292. This entry in Cushing’s diary proves the exact date of the image in Figure 4.

53.

Fulton JF. Op. cit. 1946, p.329. The date of this entry – 12 July – is William Osler’s birthday.

54.

Vesalius

Holl

Sudhoff

. Des Andreas Vesalius sechs anatomische Tafeln vom Jahre 1538 in Lichtdruck, neu herausgegeben und der 86. Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zur Feier der 400. Wiederkehr des Jahres seiner Geburt, Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1920.

55.

Cushing

Apologia. In: Cushing

(ed). A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York: Schuman’s, 1943, pp. xviii–xviii. Here Cushing correctly dates the images which are reproduced in ‘Figure One’ two pages later. The previous dating error is not referred to although it is clearly visible on the image opposite page 187 in The Life of Sir William Osler, Volume II. McGill’s Library’s online William Osler Photo Collection reproduces this error.

56.

Fulton JF. Op Cit. 1946, p.328. Lady Osler writes to Kate Cushing a day after Harvey’s arrival in Oxford. The letter is dated 11 July 1912. On the same day, Cushing wrote in his own diary: ‘An hour with Dr. O.’s books which I gather he is to give to Montreal. They are being splendidly catalogued – and have burst from the Library into the hall’.

57.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 431–431. No further context is given to the quote.

58.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 431–431. Although Cushing gives the date of this letter as 2 September 1914, McGill University’s online William Osler Letter Index says 3 September (CUS417/118.30). Cushing suggests that Osler was the first to consider refurbishing Louvain’s library.

59.

Osler W. The re-stocking of Louvain Library (Correspondence). The Lancet 1919; 193: 1042. Osler was himself serving on the committee to restock the library and together with his wife provided respite care for refugee Professors from Louvain – See: Bliss M. William Osler; A life in medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.404–405, 463.

60.

Cushing

. The life of Sir William Osler. Vol II, Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1925, pp. 576–578.

61.

Cushing

. From a surgeon's Journal, 1915–1918, Boston: Little, Brown, & Co, 1936, pp. 197–198.

62.

Harvey Cushing Society (1939). Harvey Cushing's 70th Birthday Party April 8, 1939: Speeches, letters, and tributes: Publ. for the Harvey Cushing Society, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1936, pp. 20–20. Also quoted in Fulton’s biography on page 707. Dr. Francis was primarily responsible for cataloguing Osler’s massive collection of books after he died and became the first Osler Librarian at McGill University in 1921.

63.

See ‘Events and Exhibitions’ list on Karger’s Vesalius 500 website: http://www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/news-networking/events-exhibitions.html. This list is regularly updated and currently lists only a fraction of the actual number of commemorative events which first started in 2014. The events are all too numerous to mention here but a simple Internet search demonstrates the point well.

64.

The ‘Vesalius Continuum’ conference at Zakynthos which ran from 4–8 September 2014 was a great success. Notes on the full program are available here: http://www.vesalius-continuum.com/the-conference.html.

65.

For a pointed pictorial biography of Vesalius' life and work, see Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564): 500 Years Young, a personalised video tribute uploaded to YouTube.

66.

Vesalius

. De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, The Fabric of the Human Body, An Annotated Translation of the 1543 and 1555 Editions, By Daniel H. Garrison, Malcolm H. Hast, Basel: Karger, 2014.

Centennial ties: Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) and William Osler (1849–1919) on Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564)

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

The Vesalius quatercentenary

Harvey Cushing on Vesalius

Cushing’s quatercentenary contributions

Death by Vesaliana

William Osler on Vesalius

Osler and the Fabrica

Osler and the Tabulae Anatomicae Sex

Restocking Louvain

A quintessential quincentennial

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

References