William Osler: A Life in Medicine
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £6.50
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in William Osler: A Life in Medicine for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £6.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A dutiful social historian, Bliss inquires into Osler's sensitivity to issues of ethnicity, class, and gender." -- Ronald L. Numbers, Science
"A well-told, enjoyable, enlightening--and much needed-- biography of a giant of medical practice and education...A first-rate biography of a towering medical figure." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Medical historian Bliss has written the authoritative modern biography of the 19-century Canadian physician William Osler...This volume replaces Harvey Cushing's two volume tribute, The Life of William Osler (1956) as the definitive text in the field. Highly recommended...essential."--LibraryJournal (starred review)
"An excellent, readable biography written by a true scholar of medical history who knows his man and his material intimately."--Journal of the American Medical Association
Product Description
William Osler was born in a parsonage in backwoods Canada on July 12, 1849. In a life lasting seventy years, he practiced, taught, and wrote about medicine at Canada's McGill University, America's Johns Hopkins University, and finally as Regius Professor at Oxford. At the time of his death in England in 1919, many considered him to be the greatest doctor in the world. Osler, who was a brilliant, innovative teacher and a scholar of the natural history of disease, revolutionised the art of practicing medicine at the bedside of his patients. He was idolised by two generations of medical students and practitioners for whom he came to personify the ideal doctor. But much more than a physician, Osler was a supremely intelligent humanist. In both his writings and his personal life, and through the prism of the tragedy of the Great War, he embodied the art of living. It was perhaps his legendary compassion that elevated his healing talents to an art form and attracted to his private practice students, colleagues, poets (Walt Whitman for example) politicians, royalty, and nameless ordinary people with extraordinary conditions. William Osler's life lucidly illuminates the times in which he lived. Indeed, this is a book not only about the evolution of modern medicine, the training of doctors, holism in medical thought, and the doctor-patient relationship, but also about humanism, Victorianism, the Great War, and much else. Meticulously researched, drawing on many new sources and offering new interpretations, William Osler: A Life in Medicine brings to life both a fascinating man and the formative age of twentieth-century medicine. It is a classic biography of a classic life, both authoritative and highly readable.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One of the most engaging and delightful biographies I have ever read - and whose subject is an absolutely fascinating human being. The interest is everywhere and of every kind: characterological, institutional, international, scientific, medical, historical, social, philosophical, economic, pedagogic, literary, ethical, humorous, tragic, heroic, inspirational.
The effect of the book is uplifting, challenging, instructive, buoying, rivetting. It is almost impossible to put it down, and when one does one's mood is deep, absent reflection.
There is a profound lesson in "William Osler: A Life in Medicine" for our own era and its bizarre and pitiful oblivion of all that really lies at the heart of medicine: suffering, character, judgment, courage, conscience, compassion, ignorance, and you and I.
NOT process control, impersonal abstraction, colossalism, profiteering, niggardliness, or cosmetic morality.
- Patrick Gunkel
Format:Paperback
This excellent biography of Sir William Osler not only brings to life an engaging scientist, husband, father, and gifted teacher, but it also illuminates the history of the medical sciences -- including pathology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, psychiatry -- from the dark ages of bleeding to the threshold of the discoveries of sulfa and penicillin. In the process, this work limns the horrors of World War I and the barbarism of German militarism, which destroyed the cultural treasures of Louvain, Belgium much as a century later the Iraqis set fire to the oil fields of Kuwait. There are unexpected flashes of humor and pathos, not to mention an admonitory portrait of a descendant of Paul Revere of whom the rough rider might well have been ashamed.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
14 reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
A Wonderful Book!
5 Aug 2000
Format:Hardcover
I was not an unbiased reader when I picked this up -a graduating medical student about to begin a medical residency. There is a minimum of technical medicine in this biography -it reads more like a novel, filled with Osler's own writing. Bliss poured through his technical papers, his speaches, letters and medical jokes (published under the pseudoname Eagerton Y Davis) and gives us a taste of what an incredible man he must have been. Full of energy, a mind constantly at work, yet a tender-hearted soul who was a pioneer in the art of medicine, of making the doctor-patient relationship warm and empathetic in an era when this was unpopular. Bliss reveals that this is a person we should remember and who's example we all should take to heart: diligent work, a positive attitude, and concern for humanity made manifest each day in one's daily living. Read this book!
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful book!
3 Jun 2000
Format:Hardcover
Though I've never personally had much of an interest in the history of medicine, I found this book very enjoyable and inspirational. I think all physicians will similarly feel inspired, as Osler was a shining example of what good bedside manner can accomplish in an age where medicine was relatively impotent, and beyond that, he was also a shining example of a brilliant, decent and caring human being. A wonderful book, beautifully written...I couldn't put it down, and I hope you will have the same trouble! Paul Dash MD
Addendum: 2-23-06 Neurology Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins featured a lecture on Osler as a neurologist. Osler, of course, was a guiding light at Hopkins for many years. The speaker, Dr. Gregory Bergery, an epileptologist with a passion for the history of neurology, specifically mentioned the Bliss biography and highly praised it as the best available. The lecture itself concerned Osler's many contributions to neurology which are underappreciated; e.g. for many years he wrote the neuro sections in his famous text Principles of Medicine prior to turning it over to Cushing, and was the first to use the term cerebral palsy in a monograph he published on the subject. The lecture again renewed a sense of awe over what an incredible person Osler was.
Addendum: 2-23-06 Neurology Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins featured a lecture on Osler as a neurologist. Osler, of course, was a guiding light at Hopkins for many years. The speaker, Dr. Gregory Bergery, an epileptologist with a passion for the history of neurology, specifically mentioned the Bliss biography and highly praised it as the best available. The lecture itself concerned Osler's many contributions to neurology which are underappreciated; e.g. for many years he wrote the neuro sections in his famous text Principles of Medicine prior to turning it over to Cushing, and was the first to use the term cerebral palsy in a monograph he published on the subject. The lecture again renewed a sense of awe over what an incredible person Osler was.
34 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Thorough, detailed, inspirational & easy to read
10 Nov 1999
Format:Hardcover
As a Canadian trained physician now transplanted to the US, I found the story of Osler inspirational and stirring.It may have helped that I had been to many of the locations in the book making it seem much more 'alive'. The style of writing was easy to follow, yet there was an obvious scholarly detail and depth. It has encouraged me to read more on the history of medicine. Quite engrossing.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1701-1900
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Canada
- Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Engineering
- Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Science
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > History of Medicine
- Books > Science & Nature > Medicine
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
