A tour of the Osler Library of the history of medicine through jewish eyessler library of the history of medicine through Jewish eyes.

Abstract

In July of 2017, the organization Torah in Motion held a conference in Montreal, Canada, addressing the latest advances in medicine from the perspective of Jewish law and ethics.1 As a supplement to the conference, and to provide some historical perspective, the authors organized a special tour of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University, highlighting its relationship to Jews and their practice of medicine throughout the centuries.2 The library, opened in 1929, houses the collection of rare medical and scientific works donated by Sir William Osler, the renowned physician, professor and medical educator. It is one of the finest collections of its kind. The tour was attended by some eighty physicians and health care workers from across the United States and Canada. In this article, we recreate this tour, which explores the relationship of Sir William Osler and his magnificent collection to Jewish medical history. We hope that this exercise will give the reader an appreciation of a dimension of the Osler Library that has not previously been explored. (from Introduction)