JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL SCHOOL.


OSLER, WILLIAM. 1849-1919. Whole-Time Clinical Professors. A letter to President Remsen, Johns Hopkins University. [Oxford: Privately printed, 1911.] 8vo (223 x 146 mm). Publisher's string-bound wrappers, creased throughout. Provenance: Samuel Amberg (1874-1966, ink name to front cover).WITH: Flexner, Abraham. From the Report on the Johns Hopkins Medical School. [Privately printed, 1911.] 8vo (229 x 157 mm). 25, [1] pp. TWO WILLIAM OSLER/JOHN HOPKINS ITEMS OF THE GREATEST RARITY. "NOT FOR PUBLICATION" is printed at the bottom of the front wrapper of the first. The second item printed "Confidential" on the first page. As Osler explains, "This is a family letter, strictly confidential and not for publication. It is sent only to the President and the Trustees of the University, the President and Trustees of the Hospital, to Mr. Abraham Flexner, to Dr. Hurd, Dr. Winford Smith and Dr. Norton of the Hospital, and to the Professors in the Medical School. Other copies are not to be had." Osler refers to Flexner's 1911 report in his [printed] letter to President Ira Remsen: "Let me thank you, first, for Mr. Flexner's Report [referring to this confidential report, and not his well-known 1910 report on medical education in the U.S. and Canada] ... It is a pity the report was allowed to go out in its present form, as his remarks show a very feeble grasp of the clinical situation at the Johns Hopkins Hospital." Osler details his strong opposition to expanding the full-time faculty system from the medical scientists to the clinical faculty. "I take it," he told Remsen, "the special advantage claimed for the whole-time system is that the Professors will be better able to promote research." But Osler feared the plan would encourage "the evolution throughout the country of a set of clinical prigs, the boundary of whose horizon would be in the laboratory, and whose only human interest was research." Meanwhile, he appreciated the financial incentives held out to Johns Hopkins to adopt the plan. Speaking candidly, Osler declared: "We are all for sale, dear Remsen. You and I have been in the market for years, and have loved to buy and sell our wares and brains and books — it has been our life. So with institutions." See Fye, The Origin of the Full-time Faculty System, 1991 (an offprint of this article is included with the lot).