OSLER, WILLIAM. 1849-1919.
Typed Letter Signed ("Wm Osler") to [Howard A.] Kelly, referencing the big four at Johns Hopkins, 1 p, 219 x 172 mm, on "from the Regius Professor of Medicine" stationery, Oxford, February 24, 1919, old folds.
WITH: KELLY, HOWARD A. Cephalaematoma Verum Externum. [From:] Gynecological Transactions, Vol XV, 1890. Philadelphia: Dornan, 1890. 8vo. Publisher's printed boards, cloth-tape back, label to spine, rubbed. HOWARD A. KELLY'S COPY, bound in boards, with his stamp to endpaper.
OSLER TO KELLY LOOKING BACK ON THE "TOUGH-FIBRED OLD QUARTETTE [sic]," in part, "Just think what you have done since that day I stole you from Philadelphia! What a tough-fibred old quartette we have proved to be!["!" inserted in manuscript] I don't see how you have lasted, having driven the machine much harder than any of us."
Written in the last year of his life, and during the transition of Kelly to Emeritus status at Hopkins, the letter represents a lovely valedictory statement of one of the most important relationships in American medicine.