This physician was the eighth of nine children of an Anglican missionary, born at Bond Head, Ontario on July 12, 1849. His youthful escapades included expulsion from school and at one time a brief jail sentence. Unfortunately his scandalous behavior didn’t end, even after he graduated from McGill University Medical School in 1872.
Over subsequent years he authored a series of ribald hoax letters which were printed in various medical journals under the pseudonym, Egerton Yorrick Davis, MD, ostensibly a retired US Army surgeon. He also enjoyed and played many practical jokes on his colleagues and students.
I am of course referring to Sir William Osler, perhaps the greatest physician to emerge from Canada and the first person offered a professorship at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore. His textbook “The Principles and Practice of Medicine” became the Bible for the medical profession of his day and he was revered and emulated by all with whom he came in contact. He later occupied the Regius chair of medicine at Oxford University in England.
Some might accuse Osler of having had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. After all, it’s a little difficult to hold him quite as high on his pedestal when one reads his totally fictionalized account of “penis captivus” printed in The Philadelphia Medical News in 1884.
In this letter “Dr. E.Y. Davis” describes how he was sent to attend to a coachman who was caught in bed with one of the maids. He describes the coachman as a big burly man, over six feet, and the maid as a small woman, not more than ninety pounds. The maid was moaning and screaming and seemed in great agony and it was quite evident the coachman’s penis was tightly locked in her vagina. It was reported that water and then ice were applied, but were ineffectual. At last a few whiffs of chloroform sent the woman to sleep, relaxed the spasm, and released the captive penis. Davis/Osler goes on to comment that though the coachman had a sore organ for a few days, the woman recovered rapidly and seemed none the worse for her ordeal. As recently as 1979 this “case” has been quoted as a factual example of vaginismus leading to “penis captivus”.
Another letter of EYD, suppressed for many years, was entitled “Professional Notes Among the Indian Tribes About Great Slave Lake, NWT”. This wholly fictional (and now very politically incorrect) account describes how native peoples of the area subjected the penis of young men to intense scrutiny to determine if they were fit to propagate. If the slightest defect was detected the candidate was rejected. If he passed he was in turn handed over to a group of women consisting of six virgins and six mothers. If they found him satisfactory the glans of the penis was branded with two crossed lines as a sort of seal of approval. The author goes on to describe one case in which the practice was a bit too vigorously applied.
Further on in his treatise, Osler describes the obstetrical delivery method, a sort of committee effort led by a female elder and eight or nine assistants. Once the older woman had examined the patient the others all would examine her in turn (and I thought this barbaric rite only occurred in teaching hospitals!) When the head is visible the parturient mother is then hung two feet in the air, and must not touch the ground until delivery is effected or great calamity will ensure. Afterwards family and friends consumed the placenta with great relish.
(In Osler’s defense this treatise seems much more designed to illustrate the gullibility of its medical readers, than to be pejorative to First Nations’ customs. Besides, based on Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis’ writings the native midwives likely had lower maternal mortality rates than did the medical establishment only a few decades previously.)
In 1886 Osler reported that on a trip across western Canada, a woman had given birth in the train’s washroom and the baby had dropped onto the track. The infant was later found alive. This story was actually true, but Osler had cried wolf once too often and was disbelieved for years. He protested in 1889, “What I have suffered on account of that baby! To be jeered at by the French journals, to be called by the editor of the Medical Record a narrator of funny stories, to be referred to by my colleagues as Munchausen – these things have been hard to bear…”
Other literary efforts of the inimitable E.Y. Davis, MD included a letter on the use of electricity to draw ectopic pregnancies into the uterus, and a pair of sonnets, adapted from John Keats (also a physician) condemning political corruption in Baltimore. In 1902, “Dr. Davis” penned a fictitious case history of Peyronie’s disease, in which “an old codger of about 65 years” presents with the chief complaint of “squint of the cock” or “strabisme du penis”. Another brief consultation note signed by EYD suggests treating hysteria and globus (a sensation of a lump in the throat) with a judicious application of electricity to the throat.
“Dr. Davis” later reviews a new medical text in which Osler himself is one of the contributors. He reserves some of his most severe criticism for the section on hematology which he authored. Complaints included too much brevity in the part on “chlorosis” and that there was “an extraordinary mistake in the number of white blood corpuscles per cubic millimetre”. Interestingly, another treatise by “Dr. E.Y. Davis” entitled “Sexual Peculiarities” still remains under lock and key at the Osler Library.
Another manifestation of Osler’s lighter side was his practical jokes, which were also legendary. When his dear friend, pediatrician Abraham Jacobi, visited Baltimore, Osler described the physician to the local press as a champion track star who held several records with the New York Athletic Association. They were not amused when they discovered Jacobi was a frail septuagenarian. Later when Jacobi was preparing to give a speech, Osler deftly picked his notes from his pocket. The speaker was quite discomfited searching for his papers, until Osler handed them back saying a guest had “found them” on the stairs.
Why did Osler pick the “nom de plume” of Egerton Yorrick Davis? Richard L. Golden, MD in his book, “The Works of Egerton Yorrick Davis” feels the surname, Davis, may derive from Nathan Smith Davis, the founder of the American Medical Association. Egerton most likely taken from Egerton Ryerson, founder of the Ontario school system. Yorrick may derive from Shakespeare’s jester in Hamlet, though Golden thinks this more likely comes from Laurence Sterne’s pseudonym in “Sermons of Mr. Yorick”.
While some of Sir William’s jests may seem a little questionable in taste by today’s standards, they do illustrate a whimsical and human side to the great physician’s personality. I find a taste of Osler’s lighter side gives the man an added dimension which would be otherwise lacking from more serious biographies.
Many years ago a professor at Dalhousie related the following story about Osler. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a reference to confirm its authenticity, though in light of my recent reading it rings true.
During a lecture to medical students, Dr. Osler was supposed to have taken a urine specimen from a severe diabetic and proposed to use it to test his students’ powers of observation. He dipped a digit into the urine, then sucked on his finger. Following this Osler passed the urine around the room and asked each student to make his own observation. With disgust they all tasted the urine and passed it on. When the students were finished he asked for their observations. “The urine was very sweet”, was the unanimous opinion. “Perhaps”, said Osler. “But if you’d really been observant you would have noticed that I placed my middle finger in the urine but the index finger in my mouth”.
References:
- The Works of Egerton Yorrick Davis, MD: edited, annotated, and introduced by Richard L. Golden, MD; Osler Library, McGill University, Montreal 1999
- Sir William Osler, American Osler Society (Web site) staffweb.lib.uiowa.edu/deimas/AmOslerSoc/osler.html
Image Credits:
William Osler photos via Wikimedia Commons
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