Sir William Osler espoused a particularly idealized medical life that included the patient in the physician’s worldview.Disease is not considered a monolith, only a reflection of one’s broader health. Death, too, is configured as a part ofone’s being, not as a thing apart from life. The wholesomeness that characterized Osler’s practice is well known—how-ever, his long discussions and thoughts on death have not been sufficiently analyzed. His clinical views have been hinted atand numerous medical historians have noted that Osler’s worldview on death was avant-garde for its time, one in whichhe described finality not as a time of suffering and anguish, but as “singularly free from mental distress.” This essay con-tends with this simple view. This straightforward understanding becomes complicated when delving into such primaryresources as Osler’s Study on Dying cards, his writings on other medical conditions, and personal reflections following the personal losses of his sons Edward Revere Osler and Paul Revere Osler. This essay contends that the loss and thedeath he imagines is not one of peace, but rather, of horror and terror. Furthermore, the primary sources showOsler not as the paragon of flawless clinical acumen and reasoning, but a man of personal beliefs that were in conflictwith views he espoused more publicly. The essay therefore reconceptualizes the common understanding of a stoicOsler, determines how death prefigures into Oslerian thought, and challenges the idea of an Oslerian simple death.
展开▼
