William Osler, who was a brilliant, innovative teacher and a scholar of the natural history of disease, revolutionized the art of practicing medicine at the bedside of his patients. He was idolized by two generations of medical students and practitioners for whom he came to personify the ideal doctor. But much more than a physician, Osler was a fiercely intelligent humanist.

In both his writings and his personal life--and through the prism of the tragedy of the Great War--he embodied the art of living. Indeed, this is a book not only about the evolution of modern medicine, the training of doctors, holism in medical thought, and the doctor-patient relationship, but also about humanism, Victorianism, the Great War, and much else. Meticulously researched and accessibly written, brings to life both a fascinating man and the formative age of twentieth-century medicine.