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The use of the term ‘old man’s friend’ when referring to pneumonia is attributed to William Osler, who in the first edition of his book The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892)1 wrote,
In children and in healthy adults the outlook is good. In the debilitated, in drunkards and in the aged the chances are against recovery. So fatal is it in the latter class [i.e. the elderly] that it has been termed the natural end of the old man.1
This was later rephrased in the ninth edition, after Osler himself died from pneumonia in 1919 at the age of 70 years, as ‘… one may say that …
Footnotes
Contributors I am the sole author.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
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