The manuscript of Sir William Osler’s lectures
on the “Evolution of Modern Medicine,”
delivered at Yale University in April, 1913, on the
Silliman Foundation, was immediately turned in to the
Yale University Press for publication. Duly set
in type, proofs in galley form had been submitted
to him and despite countless interruptions he had already
corrected and revised a number of the galleys when
the great war came. But with the war on, he threw
himself with energy and devotion into the military
and public duties which devolved upon him and so never
completed his proof-reading and intended alterations.
The careful corrections which Sir William made in
the earlier galleys show that the lectures were dictated,
in the first instance, as loose memoranda for oral
delivery rather than as finished compositions for the
eye, while maintaining throughout the logical continuity
and the engaging con moto which were so characteristic
of his literary style. In revising the lectures
for publication, therefore, the editors have merely
endeavored to carry out, with care and befitting reverence,
the indications supplied in the earlier galleys by
Sir William himself. In supplying dates and references
which were lacking, his preferences as to editions
and readings have been borne in mind. The slight
alterations made, the adaptation of the text to the
eye, detract nothing from the original freshness of
the work.
In a letter to one of the editors, Osler described
these lectures as “an aeroplane flight over
the progress of medicine through the ages.”
They are, in effect, a sweeping panoramic survey of
the whole vast field, covering wide areas at a rapid
pace, yet with an extraordinary variety of detail.
The slow, painful character of the evolution of medicine
from the fearsome, superstitious mental complex of
primitive man, with his amulets, healing gods and
disease demons, to the ideal of a clear-eyed rationalism
is traced with faith and a serene sense of continuity.
The author saw clearly and felt deeply that the men
who have made an idea or discovery viable and valuable
to humanity are the deserving men; he has made the
great names shine out, without any depreciation of
the important work of lesser men and without cluttering
up his narrative with the tedious prehistory of great
discoveries or with shrill claims to priority.
Of his skill in differentiating the sundry “strains”
of medicine, there is specific witness in each section.
Osler’s wide culture and control of the best
available literature of his subject permitted him
to range the ampler aether of Greek medicine or the
earth-fettered schools of today with equal mastery;
there is no quickset of pedantry between the author
and the reader. The illustrations (which he had
doubtless planned as fully for the last as for the
earlier chapters) are as he left them; save that,
lacking legends, these have been supplied and a few
which could not be identified have with regret been
omitted. The original galley proofs have been
revised and corrected from different viewpoints by
Fielding H.
Garrison, Harvey Cushing, Edward C. Streeter
and latterly by Leonard L. Mackall (Savannah, Ga.),
whose zeal and persistence in the painstaking verification
of citations and references cannot be too highly commended.
