Medicine: Osier at Blockley

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In 1884, eager, warmhearted Canadian Dr. William Osier flipped a coin, to decide whether he should leave McGill University in Montreal to teach clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. It fell "heads"; he left.

Sprawling next to the new University Hospital were the ramshackle buildings of Blockley (Philadelphia General Hospital), oldest in the U. S. (founded 1732). Near Blockley's rear gate was a narrow, two-story, red brick building, the old autopsy house. There Dr. Osier went every afternoon, a top hat on the back of his head, a pack of adoring students at his heels. In a bare room furnished only with a storage vault and a ston'e table, he cut up corpses the old janitor had saved for him.

Last week, 1,000 doctors from all over the U. S. crowded around Blockley quadrangle as the old autopsy house, patched up and fitted out with Dr. Osier's medical instruments, was dedicated as the Osier Memorial Building. Chief speaker was Dr. Osier's friend, Professor William George MacCallum of Johns Hopkins. Among the speakers was one of Dr. Osier's interns, 82-year-old Dr. William Ellery Hughes, dean of Philadelphia physicians. Said he: "This new place may be more efficient but it doesn't have the same smells."