The baptismal font in Trinity Church, Bond Head, Ontario, where Sir William Osler was baptized by his father, Featherstone Lake Osler.

Sir William Osler was born on this date in 1849.  Readers may not be aware of the fact that his father, the Reverend Featherstone Lake Osler, originally wanted to name him Walter, in recognition of an English benefactor of his ministry in the wilds of Canada.  Given that he was born on July 12th, however, it was decided to name him in honour of King William of Orange, the British monarch who defeated the Catholic Stuarts in the Battle of the Boyne on July 12th, 1690.

In many parts of Canada, including Bond Head, Ontario where Sir William was born, Irish Protestants belonging to the Orange Lodge celebrated the “Glorious Twelfth” with parades.  When the one in Bond Head arrived at the Osler parsonage in 1849, the assembled Orangemen insisted that the baby boy be named after their beloved King Billy.  Perhaps Featherstone felt it best not to argue with them.

Want to learn more about the history of one of the world’s most illustrious physicians?  Check out our Osleriana guide to online resources.  You can also browse through our William Osler Photo Collection, which contains numerous images and information about all stages of Osler’s life.  There is an entry for Sir William Osler in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and Edith Gitting Reid’s short biography The Great Physician is available through the Internet Archive.  Of course, the Osler Library has a  large number of biographies of Sir William that you can consult or borrow.

Happy Glorious Twelfth!

Abstract: Under specific consideration of the theoretical approaches and practical research influences of “interdisciplinarity” in neuroscientific research, this presentation (as the “Nickerson Fellowship Talk”) addresses a time period and a subject of investigation that has only marginally been dealt with in the history of medicine and neurosciences: the influences and the context of the creation of early centres of neuroscientific research at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Breaking with the disciplinary set-up of “brain research” in the 19th century, prominent medical researchers such as Heinrich Obersteiner (Vienna), Otfrid Foerster (Breslau), Ludwig Edinger (Frankfurt), Emil Kraepelin (Munich), and Oskar Vogt (Berlin) helped to foster new trends in group-oriented neuroscientific activity.  These approaches later served as major templates for such influential North American brain researchers as Wilder Penfield (Montreal), Harvey Cushing (Boston), and Francis O. Schmitt (St. Louis) and strongly reshaped the manner in which research investigations in the biomedical life sciences took place in the 20th century.

Yet so far, we do not have a sufficient historical understanding nor a philosophical explanation of what triggered these developments in the first place and how theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic factors played together in creating these new and fascinating forms of research organization.  This presentation – by particularly focusing on Foerster’s Neurological Institute in Breslau and Penfield’s research visits in the 1920s and 1930s – intends to give some tentative answers as to the place, time, and culture in which these scientific and philosophical changes began to transform early neuroscientific research in Europe and North America.

Frank W. Stahnisch is an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.  Since 2008, he holds the AMF/Hannah Professorship in the History of Medicine and Health Care at the UofC, and is cross-appointed in the Department of History (Faculty of Arts) and the Department of Community Health Sciences (Faculty of Medicine).  He is also a full academic member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, the Institute for Public Health, as well as academic coordinator (History) of the Calgary History and Philosophy of Science undergraduate and graduate programs.  Prior to joining the University of Calgary, he has held teaching positions at the Humboldt University of Berlin; the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, and Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany), and has also been a Visiting Professor at McGill University (Montréal), in Canada, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin) and the University of Heidelberg, in Germany.

Two upcoming talks organized by the Osler Library to put on your calendar now!

First, on Thursday afternoon, May 2^nd, Dr. Frank Stahnisch, Nickerson Fellow in Neuro History, will present a talk on “’Neurological Laboratories’ to Interdisciplinary ‘Centres of Brain Research’: Otfrid Foerster, Wilder Penfield, and Early Neuroscience in Breslau and Montreal. 2-3pm in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, Don Bates Seminar Room 101.

Then on Tuesday, May 7^th, Prof. Annmarie Adams, curator of our current exhibit entitled “Designing Doctors” will give a talk. 1-2 pm, Meakins Auditorium (McIntyre Medical Building, 5^th floor).

Please join us!

Have a look at our Exhibits and lectures page for these and past events (including online exhibitions and recorded