What Dr. Osler Said About Men Over Forty Years of Age.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 8 July 1905, Page 52

What Dr. Osler Said About Men Over Forty Years of Age.

Dr. William Osier's references to the “dead line of forty” in his address at Johns Hopkins University last week have aroused much critical comment. me address was his valedictory on leaving the Baltimore University to take charge of the medical school of Oxford Univer-x sity. He went Io Johns Hopkins at the age of 40. and is now 56. The text of the portion of his address, on the topic of the world's work being done by young men and cutting short of the careers of the old after sixty years, is given herewith. 1 am going to be bold and touch upon another question of some delicacy, but of infinite importance in university life, one that has not been settled in this country. 1 refer to a fixed period for the teacher, either of time of service or of age. Except in some proprietary schools, I do not know of any institutions in which there is a time limit of, say, twenty years’ service, as in some of the London hospitals, or in which a man is engaged for a term of years. Usually the appointment is aut vitaiu aut culpani, as the old phrase reads. Lt is a serious matter in our young universities to have all of the professors growing old at the same time. In some places only an epidemic, a time limit, or an age limit can save the situation. 1 have two fixed ideas, well known to my friends, harmless obsessions, with which I sometimes bore them, but which have a direct bearing on this important problem. The first is the comparative uselessness of num above 40 years of age. This may seem shocking, and yet, read aright, the world’s history bears out the statement. Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art. in literature —subtract the work of the men above 40. and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are to-day. It is difficult to name a great and far-reaching con(piest of the mind which has not been given to the world by a man on whose back the sun was still shining. The effective, moving, vitalising work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40 —these fifteen years of plenty, the anabolic or constructive period, in which there is always a balance in the mental bank, and the credit is still good. In the .science and art of medicine there has not been an advance of the first rank which has not been initiated by young or comparatively young men. Vesalius, Harvey. Hunter. Bichat. Laennee. Virchow, Lister, Koch—the green years were not yet upon their beads when their epoch-making studies were made. To modify an old saying, a man is sane morally at 30, rich mentally at 40. wise spiritually at 50—or never. The young men should be encouraged and afforded every possible chance to show what is in them. If there is on? thing more than another upon which th? professors of this university are to be congratulated. it is the sympathy and fellowship with their junior associates, upon whoni really in many departments, in mine certainly, has fallen the brunt of the work. And herein lies the chief value of the teacher who has passed his climacteric and is n<> longer a productive factor; hr can play the man midwife, as Socrates did to Thesetetus, and determine whether the thoughts which the young men are bringing to the light are false idols or true and noble births. My second fixed idea is Hie uselessness of men above 60 years old. and the incalculable benefit it. would be in commercial. political, and in professional life if. as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age. Donne tells us in his Biat hanatos” that, by the laws of certain wise sates, sexagenari were precipitated from a bridge, and in Rome men of that age* were not admitted to the suffrage, and they were called deponati; because the way Io the Senate*w.is per pontrm. and they, from age, were not permitted to come hither. In that '(•harming novel. “The Fixed Period.” Anthony Trollope discusses the practical advantages in modern life of a return to this ancient usage, and the plot binges upon the admirable scheme of a college, into which, at 60, men retired for a year of contemplation before a peaceful departure by chloroform. That incalculable benefits might follow such a scheme is apparent to anyone who. like myself, js ncarinx the limit, and who lias made a careful study of the calamaties which may befall men during the ae ven th and eighth decades.

Still more when he contemplates the many evils which they perpetuate unconsciously and with impunity. As it can be maintained that all the great advances hpve com** ineu-under 40, yo the history of the ivoriil sitowstikat a large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians—nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels, not a few of the bad sermons and speeches. It is not to be denied that occasionally there is a sexagenarian whose mind, as Cicero remarks, stands out of reach of the body’s decay. Such a one has learned the secret of Hermippus. that ancient Roman, who, feeling that the silver cord was loosening. cut himself clear from all companions of his own age and betook himself to the company of young men,

mingling with their games and studies, and so lived to the age of 153, puerorum halitu refocillus et edueatus. And there is truth in the story, since it is only those who live with the young who maintain a fresh outlook on the new problems of the world. The teacher’s life should have three periods — study until 25, investigation until 40, profession until 60, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance. Whether Anthony Trollope’s suggestion of a college and chloroform should be carried out or not, I have become a little dubious, as my own time is getting so short. (I might say for the benefit of the public that with a woman I would advise an entirely different plan, since after 60 her influence on her sex may be most helpful, particularly if aided by those charming accessories, a cap and a fichu.)