Medicine: Osler

Among people of mediocre intelligence, Sir William Osier is chiefly remembered today as "the doctor who said that a man at 60 ought to be chloroformed." OSLER RECOMMENDS CHLOROFORM AT SIXTY blared the newspapers of the U. S. and Canada on a certain February morning in 1905. Dr. Osier had delivered an address in Baltimore the night previous. This is what he actually said:

I have two fixed ideas well known to my friends, harmless obsessions with which I sometimes bore them, but which have a direct bearing on this important problem. The first...

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