Bryan Charles S
Institute of Internal Medicine and Family Practice, Providence Hospitals, Columbia, South Carolina, USA.
J Med Biogr. 2010 Feb;18(1):15-8. doi: 10.1258/jmb.2009.009059.
Although North American physicians commonly identify William Osler as their best example of excellence in both medicine and the humanities, Osler himself held Oliver Wendell Holmes as the best example of such an avatar. Holmes made substantial contributions to medicine, including a landmark essay on the 'Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever', and was for a while the best-selling American author on both sides of the Atlantic. Holmes' lesser reputation today when compared with Osler's is best explained by his having fewer devoted protégées, his confining his adult life to Boston and its environs, and his tendency to flit from one thing to another as opposed to consolidating his efforts in a single task as Osler did in writing his Principles and Practice of Medicine.
尽管北美医生通常将威廉·奥斯勒视为医学与人文领域卓越的最佳典范，但奥斯勒本人却认为奥利弗·温德尔·霍姆斯才是这样一个化身的最佳典范。霍姆斯对医学做出了重大贡献，包括一篇关于“产褥热的传染性”的具有里程碑意义的论文，并且有一段时间他是大西洋两岸最畅销的美国作家。与奥斯勒相比，霍姆斯如今的声誉较低，这最好的解释是他的忠实门徒较少，他成年后的生活局限于波士顿及其周边地区，以及他倾向于从一件事跳到另一件事，而不像奥斯勒撰写《医学原理与实践》那样将精力集中在一项任务上。
