Davidow Hirshbein L
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Hospitals, 900 Wall St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Arch Intern Med. 2001 Sep 24;161(17):2074-8. doi: 10.1001/archinte.161.17.2074.
William Osler (1849-1919) has long been hailed as one of the most illustrious physicians in our history. Yet, Osler's claim to fame outside the medical profession in the early 20th century was through what became known as The Fixed Period controversy about the usefulness of old men. In 1905, as the 55-year-old Osler said farewell to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine before leaving for Oxford University in England he remarked that men older than 60 years should be retired. He further mentioned a suggestion, which he attributed to Anthony Trollope's novel The Fixed Period, that men older than that age be chloroformed. This article explores the public reaction to Osler in the context of early 20th-century American ideas about old age and manhood. As our society has changed over the past century, so have our ideas about old age. The Fixed Period incident offers us an opportunity to explore the relationship between medical and popular ideas about old age. This historical perspective allows us to see that physicians have not always had authority over old age and that public understanding and medical pronouncements on old age do not necessarily match.
威廉·奥斯勒（1849 - 1919）长期以来一直被誉为我们历史上最杰出的医生之一。然而，在20世纪初，奥斯勒在医学领域之外的声名鹊起却是源于一场关于老年人效用的所谓“固定期限”争议。1905年，55岁的奥斯勒在告别约翰·霍普金斯大学医学院前往英国牛津大学之前表示，60岁以上的男性应该退休。他还进一步提到了一个他认为出自安东尼·特罗洛普的小说《固定期限》的建议，即对那个年龄以上的男性实施氯仿麻醉。本文在20世纪初美国关于老年和男子气概的观念背景下，探讨了公众对奥斯勒的反应。在过去的一个世纪里，随着我们社会的变化，我们对老年的观念也发生了变化。“固定期限”事件为我们提供了一个机会，来探讨关于老年的医学观念和大众观念之间的关系。这种历史视角让我们看到，医生并非一直对老年问题拥有权威，而且公众对老年的理解与医学上对老年的论断并不一定相符。
