Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope". In addition to being a physician he was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. He was passionate about medical libraries and medical history, having founded the History of Medicine Society, at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. He was also instrumental in founding the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Association of Medical Librarians along with three other people, including Margaret Charlton, the medical librarian of his alma mater, McGill University. He left his own large history of medicine library to McGill, where it became the Osler Library.
The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is a medical society based at 1 Wimpole Street, London, UK. It is a registered charity, with admission through membership.
The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (FPM) is a British non-profit organisation that was founded after World War I and pioneered the development of postgraduate educational programmes in all branches of medicine. It was founded in late 1918 as the Inter-allied Fellowship of Medicine with Sir William Osler as its president. In the autumn of 1919, Osler merged the IAFM with the Postgraduate Medical Association of which he had been the founding President since 1911. In October 1919, Osler was appointed President of the combined Fellowship of Medicine and the Postgraduate Medical Association and Sir William Osler became the first president of the new organisation. The fellowship is supported by national and international fellows with expertise in the practice of medicine, medical education, clinical research, and related disciplines. The office and meeting rooms of the fellowship are in Central London. It is governed by a council that meets quarterly.
The Osler Club of London is a society founded in 1928 to encourage the study of the history of medicine, particularly amongst medical students, and to keep "green the memory of Sir William Osler". Membership in the club is open to medical men and women, medical students, and persons associated with the history of medicine and in allied sciences.
Dorothea Waley Singer, b. Cohen (1882–1964) was a British palaeographer, historian of science, medical historian and philanthropist.
Douglas James Guthrie FRSE FRCS FRCP FRCSEd FRCPE was a Scottish medical doctor, otolaryngologist and historian of medicine.
David Geraint James FRCP was a Welsh physician who devoted his career to the treatment of sarcoidosis, setting up a specialist clinic for the condition and earning the nickname "King of Sarcoid".
Medical History is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of medicine. It was established in 1957. The journal is edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya and is published by Cambridge University Press.
The History of Medicine Society (HoMS), at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), London, was founded by Sir William Osler in 1912, and later became one of the four founder medical societies of the British Society for the History of Medicine.
Alfred White Franklin FRCP was an English neonatologist and paediatrician who edited numerous books on child abuse, founded the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, kept an interest in medical history and wrote on child matters. He was a prominent figure in the field of child abuse prevention.
John Davy Rolleston FSA FRCP was an English physician and folklorist, who published extensively on infectious diseases and the history of medicine. Overshadowed by his brother, Sir Humphry Rolleston, he established himself as an epidemiologist, gave the Fitzpatrick Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in 1935-1936 and became involved in numerous other learned societies and medical bodies, including The Royal Society of Medicine and the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety.
The Fitzpatrick Lecture is given annually at the Royal College of Physicians on a subject related to history of medicine. The lecturer, who must be a fellow of the college, is selected by the president and may be chosen to speak for two years successively. The lectures are supported by funds from the Fitzpatrick Trust which was established in 1901 by Agnes Letitia Fitzpatrick with a £2,000 donation in memory of her physician husband Thomas Fitzpatrick. Agnes was influenced by her husband's close friend, Sir Norman Moore, who persuaded her to choose history of medicine as a subject. Subsequently, Moore was credited with its idea and implementation.
William John Bishop FLA was a British librarian, the first editor of the journal Medical History, and a prolific writer. With his friend Frederick Noël Lawrence Poynter, he wrote about John Symcotts, a medical attendant of Oliver Cromwell in A Seventeenth Century Doctor and his Patients: John Symcotts, 1592?–1662.
A History of Medicine is a book by Scottish surgeon Douglas Guthrie that was published in 1945 by Thomas Nelson and Sons. It came to wide attention after it was reviewed by the playwright George Bernard Shaw and marked the beginning for Guthrie of a new career in teaching the history of medicine.
Haldane Philp Tait (1911-1990) was the Principal Medical Officer for the Child Health Service, Edinburgh and co-founder of the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine and as a result of his contributions, became its President in 1977 and Honorary President in 1981. He also published Dr Elsie Maud Inglis (1864-1917): a great lady doctor in 1964, and later recorded the history of the Edinburgh Health Department from 1862 to 1974 in a book entitled A Doctor and Two Policemen.
Edwin Sisterton Clarke FRCP was a British neurologist and medical historian, best remembered for his role as Director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, when he succeeded Noël Poynter and oversaw the transfer of the Wellcome museum to the Science museum, helped establish an intercalated BSc degree in the history of medicine for medical students and edited the journal Medical History.
Frederick Noël Lawrence Poynter FLA was a British librarian and medical historian who served as director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine from 1964 to 1973.
The Poynter Lecture is given every two years at the British Society for the History of Medicine in memory of Noël Poynter, past president of BSHM, who was Director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine from 1964 to 1973.
Extramural medical education in Edinburgh began over 200 years before the university medical faculty was founded in 1726 and extramural teaching continued thereafter for a further 200 years. Extramural is academic education which is conducted outside a university. In the early 16th century it was under the auspices of the Incorporation of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) and continued after the Faculty of Medicine was established by the University of Edinburgh in 1726. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries the demand for extramural medical teaching increased as Edinburgh's reputation as a centre for medical education grew. Instruction was carried out by individual teachers, by groups of teachers and, by the end of the 19th century, by private medical schools in the city. Together these comprised the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine. From 1896 many of the schools were incorporated into the Medical School of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh under the aegis of the RCSEd and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) and based at Surgeons' Hall. Extramural undergraduate medical education in Edinburgh stopped in 1948 with the closure of the Royal Colleges' Medical School following the Goodenough Report which recommended that all undergraduate medical education in the UK should be carried out by universities.
