Books and Men, Redux 1

Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon? So Duke of Gloucester is said to have exclaimed one day in 1781, when Edward Gibbon presented him with a copy of second volume of Decline and Fall of Roman Empire. We have no record of portly little scholar's response, but it may be guessed that he paid little heed to nobleman's foolishness, and with good reason: first volume of his chronicle had been so astonishingly successful that he had no doubt already begun daring to hope that his scribbling might be destined for literary immortality.Since Iliad and Bible, course of our civilization has been marked by appearance of great books, some of which have become famously designated as Great Books. For every one of these that competes for inclusion in so-called Western Canon, there are dozens, of equal importance to development of our culture, that are little read or are remembered only by specialists of one sort or another. Among them are some of landmark works in history of medical knowledge. More than any other profession or calling-except perhaps clergy-doctors have always recorded their experiences and interpretations. They have done primarily for instructional and archival reasons, but a byproduct has been influence of such works on ways in which their readers think about humankind's relationship with nature.This is why presence of renowned libraries of history of medicine-and storehouses of most current of medical science- have graced some of leading universities and other scholarly institutions of Western world. Included-to speak only of Northeast of our nation-are Countway in Boston, Cushing/ Whitney at Yale in New Haven, New York Academy of Medicine, and College of Physicians (among others) here in Philadelphia.On 12 January 1901, then fifty-one-year-old William Osler, at height of his career as professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, spoke at official opening of newly reconstituted Boston Medical Library (since then subsumed into Countway) on topic Books and Men. Eleven years later, when he was Regius Professor at Oxford, Sir William Osler collected a group of his short writings that he liked to call and Books, written mostly for Canadian Medical Association Journal, which were published long after his death in a small volume of that name.But it is original Books and Men to which I'd like to return, in which Osler spoke of well-known phenomenon of bibliomania, a major species of which is a fanatical interest in works and authors of bygone eras. The men I speak of, he said, keep alive in us an interest in great men of past and not alone in their works, which they cherish, but in their lives, which they emulate. By emulate, Osler meant what he referred to as the silent influence of character on character and in no way more potent than in contemplation of lives of great and good of past, in no way more than in touch divine of noble natures gone. In his closing words, Osler referred to great library in which he was speaking and, by association, libraries in general as this home for your books, workshop for your members.Like virtually everyone here afternoon, I have spent countless hours in such workshops. But it is in Medical Historical Library of Cushing/Whitney at Yale that I have found my scholarly home. I like to think of it as my own personal place, even though it is shared by hundreds of men and women very much like me, who are often overcome by need to look backward in midst of trying to move forward. To my knowledge, none of us has yet been turned into a pillar of salt.It is there that I have been able to make what one of library's original donors called to other times and other places. That inspiring arena creates an atmosphere in which medical bibliomaniacs can book passage on uninterrupted voyages to yesteryear. …

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