Adapted from Michael Lacombe’s introduction to
Osler’s Bedside Library.
In Osler’s Bedside
Library we cover those classics you have always intended to read. I know, you haven't had the time.
Osler had
the time.
You have
that stack of journals.
Osler read
every scientific journal published in Canada while at McGill.
There are
students and residents to be taught.
Osler taught
them at the bedside, and what is more, gave them keys to his home, calling them
his latchkey children.
Perhaps you
are writing a textbook, or rather editing one, as it is done today.
Osler
single-handedly wrote the standard medical textbook of his day, The Principles and Practice of Medicine.
Osler was a
genius, you say. Yes, he was, but so are
you. Perhaps you can't teach or write as
well as he did, but you can read, can't you?
The book you
are holding is intended to get you to read, meant to pull you away from
television, set aside that modern novel, and return to the classics as you have
to admit you have always intended to do.
There are thirty books and/or authors listed here in the table of
contents. They include Osler's own
personal list of those ten books of which he said in Aequanimitas:
A Liberal education may be had at a very slight cost of time and
money. Well filled though the day be
with appointed tasks, to make the best possible use of your one or of your ten
talents, rest not satisfied with this professional training, but try to get the
education, if not of a scholar, at least of a gentleman. Before going to sleep read for half an hour,
and in the morning have a book open on your dressing table. You will be surprised to find how much can be
accomplished in the course of a year. I
have put down a list of ten books which you may make close friends. There are many others; studied carefully in
your student days these will help in the inner education of which I speak.
Osler called
this list of ten books his bed-side
library for medical students. They
are presented here, slightly out of order for editorial reasons to be explained
below, each introduced by a scholar who will present excerpts of the work to
whet, we hope, your appetite for this inner education. Following these ten are twenty other works
selected for their accessibility, their variety, and for their adjunctive
supplement to this education.
This is the first such book of its nature in that it contains
excerpts from pre-1913 texts that Osler had in his library, now called the
Bibliotheca Osleriana at McGill, with a catalog of his collection by the same
name. But there does exist an earlier
wonderful book by Wallis and Miller, 75
Books from the Osler Library containing essays of works Osler owned,
treasured, and read, and I refer you to that fine text as well.
We start with
Plutarch, one of Osler's Ten, and I admit this is a personal choice. A print of the cover illustration of this
book, a painting by Alexandre-Charles Guillemot entitled Erasistratus Discovers the Cause of Antiochus' Disease, captures a
moment in medical history from about 275 BC and told centuries later in
Plutarch's Lives. Next comes Browne's Religio Medici, Osler's favorite book. At the Osler Library are over thirty editions
of this work, and they are shelved next to his ashes. Following the remaining eight of Osler's Ten
come two poets, seven consummate story-tellers, six philosophers, three
dramatists, one compelling journal, and then... well, I saved the best for
last...
...were I to
ask you who might have been the greatest physician of all time, whom would you
name? Who was it who memorized his bible
by the age of 14, who by 18 had read all the existing medical textbooks and
began practicing medicine, who cured a king and in payment was given use of the
royal library, who wrote 450 books one of which, his textbook of medicine, was
used by European medical schools as the standard text for seven centuries, who
first described the transit of Venus observed with the naked eye, and who
proved four of Euclid's Postulates (the fifth is still unproven), whose book on
tonic intervals and rhythmic patterns was a standard text on musicology, and
who sought to integrate all aspects of science and religion in a grand
metaphysical vision?
Unless you
are Persian, you will not know the answer to this question, and yet George
Sarton, arguably the greatest historian of science who ever lived, said of
Avicenna:
Were you to ask historians of medicine to name the three greatest
physicians who ever lived, they would all name Avicenna and argue over the
other two.
A word or
two about the contributors to this book:
There are at
least three card-carrying Oslerians here, one member of the Baker Street Irregulars, one Aussie
whose essay on Middlemarch is simply
perfect for our purpose here, one Brit, several Canadians, one bona fide
philosopher (Conway) and a favorite teacher of mine, Arnold Weinstein of Brown,
all of whose lectures I have attended via The
Teaching Company. One contributor,
Rita Charon, earned her PhD in English after her M.D. and after
beginning a job in academic medicine.
Try that on for size. The great
majority of these contributors teach and/or direct programs in medical
humanities at their universities. I am
humbled by their work for this book.
Years ago I
wrote a short piece about an elderly patient who goads her physician into
reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair. A cardiologist from Colorado wrote me a
letter, stating that he had shown my story to his daughter, who abruptly turned
to him and said, "Well, how about it, Dad?"
And so, I
ask you, how about it?
Michael A. LaCombe, MD
Augusta, Maine
