Building a body of knowledge: sickle cell and libraries

Lemuel Whitley Diggs’s work reminds us how much of what we do is anchored in the work of our predecessors. Diggs had many heroes in his early education, among them Sir William Osler, physician-in-chief (1888–1905) at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Hospital and one of the founders of the Medical Library Association (MLA). Although the two never met, Diggs trained at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in a program that was thoroughly informed by Osler’s clinical philosophy and medical expertise. Every physician carried the store of knowledge first acquired in medical school and then expanded by clinical practice.