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". Osler was a person of many interests, who in addition to being a physician, was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. Outside of medicine, he was passionate about medical libraries and medical history and among his achievements were the founding of the History of Medicine Society, at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. In the field of librarianship he was instrumental in founding the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland, the Association of Medical Librarians with three others, including Margaret Charlton, the medical librarian of his alma mater, McGill University. He left his large history of medicine library to McGill, where it continues to exist as the Osler Library.
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 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 Lumleian Lectures are a series of annual lectures started in 1582 by the Royal College of Physicians and currently run by the Lumleian Trust. The name commemorates John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, who with Richard Caldwell of the College endowed the lectures, initially confined to surgery, but now on general medicine. William Harvey did not announce his work on the circulation of the blood in the Lumleian Lecture for 1616 although he had some partial notes on the heart and blood which led to the discovery of the circulation ten years later. By that time ambitious plans for a full anatomy course based on weekly lectures had been scaled back to a lecture three times a year.
Major-General Sir Robert McCarrison, CIE, FRCP was a Northern Ireland physician and nutritionist in the Indian Medical Service, who was made a Companion of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1923, received a knighthood in July 1933, and was appointed as Honourable Physician to the King in 1935.
Henry Roy Dean, MD, LL.D, D.Sc, FRCP, also known as Prof. H. R. Dean, was a professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
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 of the "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 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.
Founded by Sir William Osler in 1912, the History of Medicine Society, at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), London, is one of the oldest History of Medicine societies in the world and is one of the four founder committees of the British Society for the History of Medicine.
Thomas Forrest Cotton FRCP was a Canadian cardiologist. He introduced electrocardiography to Canada and England and was the first to recognise the relationship between finger clubbing in adults with acquired structural heart disease and infective endocarditis. His paper on clubbing in endocarditis is considered by cardiologists as a classic.
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.
Sir Raymond Henry Payne Crawfurd FRCP was a British physician and writer who, in addition to being active in post graduate medical education, took up numerous clinical and administrative responsibilities, including Registrar and examiner to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Dean of Kings College Hospital Medical School, now King's College London GKT School of Medical Education (GKT), and Chair of Epsom College Council.
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.
Sir Henry "Harry" Letheby Tidy was a British physician and gastroenterologist.
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, in 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 transferring 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".
