WHATEVER may be said of Sir William Osler in days to come, of his high position in medicine, of his gifts and versatility, to his contemporaries, love of his fellow-man, utter unselfishness, and an extraordinary capacity for friendship will always remain the characteristics which overshadow all else. Few so eminent and so industrious come in return to be so widely beloved for their own sake. Most of us do well with what Stevenson advises—a few friends and those without capitulation —but Osler had the God-given quality not only of being a friend with all, high or low, child or grown-up, professor or pupil, don or scholar, but what is more, of holding such friendships with an unforgetting tenacity— a scribbled line of remembrance with a playful twist to it, a note of congratulation to some delighted youngster on his first publication, the gift of an unexpected book, an unsolicited donation for some worthy cause (and giving promptly he gave doubly), a telegram to bring cheer or consolation, an article to help a struggling journal to get a footing, a cable such as his last on the day of his operation to his old Hopkins friends, which was given by them to the press for the benefit of countless others who shared their own anxiety—all this was characteristic of the man, whose first thoughts were invariably for others.
He gave much of himself to all, and everyone fortunate enough to have been brought in contact with him shared from the beginning in the universal feeling of devotion all had for him. This was true of his patients, as might be expected, and he was sought far and wide not only because of his wide knowledge of medicine and great wisdom, but because of his generosity, sympathy and great personal charm. It was true also—and this is more rare—of the members of his profession, for whom, high or low, he showed a spirit of brotherly helpfulness untinctured by those petty jealousies which sometimes mar these relationships. “Never believe what a patient may tell you to the detriment of another physician” was one of his sayings to students, and then he would add with a characteristic twist— “even though you may fear it is true”; and he was preeminently the physician to physicians and their families, and would go out of his way unsolicited and unsparingly to help them when he learned that they were ill or in distress of any kind. And no one could administer encouragement, the essential factor in the art of psychotherapy in which he was past master, or could “soothe the heartache of any pessimistic brother,” so effectively and with so little expenditure of time as could he.
He gave much of himself to all, and everyone fortunate enough to have been brought in contact with him shared from the beginning in the universal feeling of devotion all had for him. This was true of his patients, as might be expected, and he was sought far and wide not only because of his wide knowledge of medicine and great wisdom, but because of his generosity, sympathy and great personal charm. It was true also—and this is more rare—of the members of his profession, for whom, high or low, he showed a spirit of brotherly helpfulness untinctured by those petty jealousies which sometimes mar these relationships. “Never believe what a patient may tell you to the detriment of another physician” was one of his sayings to students, and then he would add with a characteristic twist— “even though you may fear it is true”; and he was preeminently the physician to physicians and their families, and would go out of his way unsolicited and unsparingly to help them when he learned that they were ill or in distress of any kind. And no one could administer encouragement, the essential factor in the art of psychotherapy in which he was past master, or could “soothe the heartache of any pessimistic brother,” so effectively and with so little expenditure of time as could he.
