Christopher Boes MD, a consultant at the Department of Neurology in Rochester, Minnesota and Medical Director for the W Bruce Fye Center for the History of Medicine, will explore the history of William Osler (1849-1919) and British neurologist William Gowers (1845-1915).

Osler and Gowers first met in 1878, when Osler was studying in London to prepare for the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians examination.

Osler visited Gowers often when in London, and they vacationed together in 1892. Osler dedicated his book On Chorea and Choreiform Affections to Gowers in 1894, addressing himself as Gowers’ sincere friend. Two warm letters between Osler and Gowers exist in the Osler Library Archives, highlighting their strong friendship. Gowers’ son Ernest wrote Osler a letter after the death of his father. Referring to the relationship between William Osler and William Gowers, he noted that Osler had “indeed been a good friend to him all through.”

Osler wrote and edited the first edition of his textbook from 1890 through early 1892, and was influenced by Gowers’ Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System. Gowers’ name was mentioned more often than any other author in the first edition of Osler’s textbook. In 1913, Osler wrote to the American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell: “You will be sorry to hear that Gowers is very ill – his own disease, ataxic paraplegia, it looks like, and ascending, so that now there are bulbar symptoms.” Macdonald Critchley disagreed, and felt that Gowers had “generalised cerebrovascular degeneration.”

Osler and Gowers were close friends, and this friendship was mutually beneficial.