His life's calling became medicine. He transferred to the pre-eminent Canadian medical school of the time, McGill University. Dr. Palmer Howard pervaded his medical studies there and throughout his life. After graduation from McGill, he spent several years in Europe studying medicine and pathology at the feet of masters such as Koch, Virchow and many others. He later wrote vignettes and longer essays about each of these men and many more. Eventually, he met the renowned Pasteur and Lister. Upon returning to McGill for a ten-year period, he amassed a great clinical and pathological knowledge and skill and honed his teaching skills. He performed over a thousand autopsies, and many of his reports actually became articles during this period. He was lured to the University of Pennsylvania where more contributions to clinical medicine occurred, and he began to use the classics and humanities in his essays and addresses. After five years, his friend William Welch called him to the new experiment in medical education, Johns Hopkins University. (Slide) Here, in 1892, Osler's fame almost instantly became international with the introduction of Principles and Practice of Medicine, which was to continue for forty years in sixteen editions and was translated universally. He was called to Oxford University as the Regis Professor of Medicine and Rector of the Bodleian Library in 1905. At Oxford his primary interest turned to books and the humanities, although medicine remained "a jealous mistress" till the end of his life. He had been a bibliophile all his life and derived much pleasure from adding masterpieces to this great library. His wife was the young widow of the famous Philadelphia surgeon, Samuel W. Gross. She supported and promoted Osler's career and provided the companionship and comfort of a good home. He was created a Baronet in 1911. His 21-year-old son Edward Revere Osler died of battle wounds in France in 1917. Olser continued to consult, teach, speak and write, but never recovered form the grief of Revere's death.
