The Osler Club of London, 1928–38: Young Medical Gentlemen, Their Heroes, Liberal Education, Books, and Other Matters

Abstract

This study focuses on the interpretation of the Oslerian legacy reflected in the activities and intellectual emphases of the Osler Club of London during its first 10 years. It argues that the founders and early members of the Club were neophytes in a medical elite, pursuing ideals which were congenial to a subgroup of that elite and in which the Club members had been raised and educated. These ideals may be summed up in the expression “the nineteenth-century, British medical gentleman.” Sir William Osler was chosen as patron of the Club because he exemplified important aspects of these ideals. However, in its orientation toward the “British medical gentleman,” reflecting the gentility of Osier—including his concern for people, his commitment to teaching, his loyalty to students and medical colleagues, and his interest in the history of medicine, its books, and the broader humanities—the Club missed an important dimension of the Oslerian legacy: an interest in the social institutions and responsibilities of medicine. Finally, this study shows that perhaps the most influential Club founder, A. W. Franklin, in his later life expanded his own vision of medicine to include and even go beyond this latter dimension of the Oslerian legacy.