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. 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 Hunterian Society, founded in 1819 in honour of the Scottish surgeon John Hunter (1728–1793), is a medical society based at the Medical Society of London, London.
The Harveian Oration is a yearly lecture held at the Royal College of Physicians of London. It was instituted in 1656 by William Harvey, discoverer of the systemic circulation. Harvey made financial provision for the college to hold an annual feast on St. Luke's Day at which an oration would be delivered in Latin to praise the college's benefactors and to exhort the Fellows and Members of this college to search and study out the secrets of nature by way of experiment. Until 1865, the Oration was given in Latin, as Harvey had specified, and known as the Oratio anniversaria; but it was thereafter spoken in English. Many of the lectures were published in book form.
Sir Vincent Zachary Cope MD MS FRCS was an English physician, surgeon, author, historian and poet perhaps best known for authoring the book Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen from 1921 until 1971. The work remains a respected and standard text of general surgery, and new editions continue being published by editors long after his death, the most recent one being the 22nd edition, published in 2010. Cope also wrote widely on the history of medicine and of public dispensaries.
The Bradshaw Lectures are lectureships given at the invitation of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It is held on alternate years in rotation with the Hunterian Oration.
William Blair-Bell was a British medical doctor and gynaecologist who was most notable as the founder of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1929. Blair-Bell was considered the greatest gynaecologist of the 20th century, raising it from what was then a branch of general surgery into a separate medical specialism.
Medical History is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of medicine. It was established in 1957. After many decades of funding by the Wellcome Trust, ownership of the journal passed to Cambridge University Press in about 2011.
The British Society for the History of Medicine (BSHM) is an umbrella organisation of History of medicine societies throughout the United Kingdom, with particular representation to the International Society for the History of Medicine. It has grown from the original four affiliated societies in 1965; the Section for the History of Medicine, The Royal Society of Medicine, London, Osler Club of London, Faculty of the History of Medicine and Pharmacy and the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, to twenty affiliated societies in 2018.
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.
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.
Rose v Royal College of Physicians, also known as The Rose Case, was a 1703 British landmark court case between the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and William Rose, a Liveryman of the Society of Apothecaries. Rose had treated a John Seale, who complained about his treatment to the RCP, who brought a successful court action against Rose in 1703. The Society of Apothecaries and Rose successfully appealed against this judgement. However, this did not change medical practice but merely legitimised what apothecaries were doing already and confirmed the "status quo". It did, nevertheless, symbolize the decline in the College's growing legal monopoly over who practises medicine. The case was ultimately seen as not one between a College and one individual, but one between one powerful College against one powerful Society.
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 American Osler Society is an organisation dedicated to the history of medicine and focuses on the "life, teachings, and ethical example of Sir William Osler". It works in co-operation with the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University and consists of a group of physicians, medical historians, and other related professions united by "the common purpose of keeping alive the memory of Sir William Osler".
The York Medical Society is a medical society founded in York, England, in 1832. It is located in a grade II* listed building at 23 Stonegate, York.
Aequanimitas was one of Sir William Osler's most famous essays, delivered to new doctors in 1889 as his farewell address at the Pennsylvania School of Medicine, prior to his transfer to Johns Hopkins. It was published in the same year and in 1904 appeared in his collection of essays titled Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine. A second edition was produced in 1906, and a third in 1932. In the essay, Osler advocates two qualities "imperturbability" and "equanimity", which he defined as "coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances".
