Osler’s Afterlife

Abstract Full circle. The day after his death, Osler’s body lay on a table for postmortem pathological investigation. It had been his wish, in keeping with his sense of medical tradition, that the attending physician do the autopsy. Osler would also have approved, possibly instructed, that the procedure take place in his home. It is a scene hard for us to imagine – the draining, cutting, sawing, oozing – even doctors remark on how messy and unpleasant the job must have been. Osler had said that he wished he could be present, having taken such a lifelong interest in the case. A.G. Gibson and an assistant took only ninety minutes to examine the internal organs and remove the brain, which was to go to America. Gibson confirmed the pleurisy, empyema, and abscesses in the lung that everyone had suspected towards the end of the illness. He could not find the source of the hemorrhage that had been the immediate cause of death – possibly something had gone wrong with the surgery or the cleansing of Osler’s wound – but the mess in Osler’s lower right lung, which was turned to pus by bacterial action, made it evident that the bleeding had been a mercy. At best he might have lingered for a week or two.