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Preface to the Second Edition

Preface

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AEQUANIMITAS

titioners  of  Medicine
 

Sir WILLIAM OSLER, Bt., M.D., F.R.S.

Late Regius Professor of Medicine, Oxford
Honorary Professor of Medicine,

Jobns Hopkins University

SECOND EDITION, WITH THREE
ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES

SIXTH IMPRESSION
 

PHILADELPHIA
P.   BLAKISTON'S  SON  &  CO.
1925

  [PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN]

TO

            EX-PRESIDENT OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

DEAR DR. GILMAN,

          Please   accept  the  dedication  of   this  volume  of   addresses, in memory of  those happy days in 1889 when, under your guidance, the  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital   was  organized  and  opened ;  and  in grateful  recognition of your active and intelligent interest in medical education.
                                       Yours sincerely,
                                                         William Osler

FIRST IMPRESSION  .   .  .  .  OCTOBER 6, '04
SECOND          Do       .   .  .  .  MARCH 7, '05
THIRD               Do       .  .  .  .   AUGUST '05
                       _____________

SECOND EDITION      .  .  .  .   AUGUST '06

DO.   SECOND IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER '10
DO.             THIRD IMPRESSION, 1914
  DO.             FOURTH IMPRESSION, 1920
DO.             FIFTH IMPRESSION, 1922
DO.             SIXTH IMPRESSION, 1925
 

PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND    EDITION
 

DELIVERED at sundry times and in divers places  in the course of a busy life,it was not without hesitation  that I collected these addresses for publication. That the simple message they contain has not been unacceptable is  shown  by  the exhaustion of three  impressions  within eighteen  months. I have to thank many friends, lay and medical, for their kind criticisms of the volume ; but above all I have been deeply touched that many young men on both sides of the Atlantic should  have written stating  that the addresses have been helpful in forming their life ideals. Loyalty to the best interests of the noblest of callings, and a profound belief in the gospel of  the day's work are the texts, with variations here and there, from which I have preached. I  have an enduring  faith in the  men who do the  routine work of our profession. Hard though the conditions  may be, approached in the right  spirit—the spirit which has animated us from the days of  Hippocrates—the practice of  medicine affords scope for the exercise of the best faculties of the mind and heart. That the yoke of the general practitioner is often  galling cannot be denied, but he has not a monopoly of the worries and trials in the meeting and conquering of  which he fights his life battle; and it is a source of inexpressible gratification to me to feel that
                                           vii

viii                             PREFACE

I may perhaps have helped to make his yoke easier and his burden lighter.
    To this edition I have added the three Valedictory addresses delivered before leaving America.   One of these —The Fixed Period—demands a word of   explanation. "To interpose a little ease," to relieve a situation of singular sadness in parting from my dear colleagues of  the  Johns Hopkins University, I jokingly suggested for the relief of  a senile professoriate an extension of Anthony Trollope's plan mentioned  in his novel, The Fixed Period. To one who had all his life  been devoted to old men, it  was not a little distressing  to be placarded in a world-wide way as their sworn enemy, and to every man over sixty whose spirit I may  have thus unwittingly  bruised, I tender my heartfelt regrets.  Let  me add, however, that the discussion  which followed my remarks  has not changed, but  has  rather strengthened my belief that the real work of life is done before the fortieth year and  that after the sixtieth year it would be best for the world and  best for themselves if men rested from their labours.
    Oxford, July, 1906.

[Aequanimitas, p. ix]

CONTENTS

      I.   AEQUANIMITAS                                                        1

     II.   DOCTOR AND NURSE                                           13

    III     TEACHER AND STUDENT                                                 21

    IV     PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS AS DEPICTED IN PLATO           45

     V     THE LEAVEN OF SCIENCE                                               77

    VI     THE ARMY SURGEON                                                     103

   VII     TEACHING AND THINKING                                              121

  VIII    INTERNAL MEDICINE AS A VOCATION                              137

    IX     NURSE AND PATIENT                                                                       153

     X     BRITISH MEDICINE IN GREATER BRITAIN                         167

   XI     AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS                                                       197

  XII   BOOKS AND MEN                                                                217

XIII    MEDICINE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                                      227

XIV    CHAUVINISM IN MEDICINE                                                                   277

 XV     SOME ASPECTS OF AMERICAN MEDICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY      307

XVI    THE HOSPITAL AS A COLLEGE                                              327

XVII   ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY   343

XVIII  THE MASTER-WORD IN MEDICINE                                       363
                                                                                                                                
XIX    THE   FIXED PERIOD                                                            389

XX     THE  STUDENT LIFE                                                                             413

XXI     UNITY, PEACE  AND  CONCORD                                           445

XXII     L'ENVOI                                                                                                 467
 

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