Faculty of Medicine, 5620McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
J Med Biogr. 2023 Feb;31(1):50-61. doi: 10.1177/09677720211018974. Epub 2021 Jun 3.
Sir William Osler espoused a particularly idealized medical life that included the patient in the physician's worldview. Disease is not considered a monolith, only a reflection of one's broader health. Death, too, is configured as a part of one's being, not as a thing apart from life. The wholesomeness that characterized Osler's practice is well known-however, his long discussions and thoughts on death have not been sufficiently analyzed. His clinical views have been hinted at and numerous medical historians have noted that Osler's worldview on death was avant-garde for its time, one in which he described finality not as a time of suffering and anguish, but as "singularly free from mental distress." This essay contends with this simple view. This straightforward understanding becomes complicated when delving into such primary resources as Osler's Study on Dying cards, his writings on other medical conditions, and personal reflections following the personal losses of his sons Edward Revere Osler and Paul Revere Osler. This essay contends that the loss and the death he imagines is not one of peace, but rather, of horror and terror. Furthermore, the primary sources show Osler not as the paragon of flawless clinical acumen and reasoning, but a man of personal beliefs that were in conflict with views he espoused more publicly. The essay therefore reconceptualizes the common understanding of a stoic Osler, determines how death prefigures into Oslerian thought, and challenges the idea of an Oslerian simple death.
威廉·奥斯勒爵士（Sir William Osler）所倡导的医学人生特别理想化，将患者纳入医生的世界观。疾病不是一个单一的实体，而只是反映一个人更广泛的健康状况。死亡也被视为一个人的存在的一部分，而不是与生命分开的东西。奥斯勒实践的整体观念是众所周知的——然而，他对死亡的长篇大论和思考并没有得到充分分析。他的临床观点已经被暗示，许多医学史学家都注意到，奥斯勒对死亡的世界观在当时是前卫的，他将其描述为“完全没有精神困扰”，而不是痛苦和痛苦的时期。本文试图从他的《临终研究卡》（Study on Dying cards）、其他医学条件的著作以及在他的儿子爱德华·雷维尔·奥斯勒（Edward Revere Osler）和保罗·雷维尔·奥斯勒（Paul Revere Osler）去世后的个人反思等主要资源入手，对这一简单观点进行深入探讨。本文认为，这种简单的理解在深入探讨主要资源时变得复杂起来，比如奥斯勒的《临终研究卡》、他关于其他医学状况的著作以及在他的儿子爱德华·雷维尔·奥斯勒和保罗·雷维尔·奥斯勒去世后的个人反思。本文认为，他所想象的失去和死亡不是一种和平，而是一种恐怖和恐惧。此外，主要来源表明，奥斯勒不是一个完美的临床敏锐度和推理的典范，而是一个有着个人信仰的人，这些信仰与他更公开支持的观点相冲突。因此，本文重新概念化了一个坚忍不拔的奥斯勒的共同理解，确定了死亡是如何预演到奥斯勒思想中的，并挑战了一个简单的奥斯勒式死亡的想法。
