The Irish School of Medicine *

During the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century there flourished in the city of Dublin the remarkable group of medical practitioners who constituted what is sometimes spoken of as the "Dublin group" and who, by their pathological and clinical studies and their influence on medical education, shed undying luster on the Irish School of Medicine. The group was composed of men of varied talents and varied ages. Among the more eminent of them there was an older pair, Abraham Colles (1773-1843) and John Cheyne (1 777-1 836), and a younger group which included Robert Adams (1791-1875), Robert James Graves (1796-1853), Dominick John Corrigan (1802-1880), and William Stokes (1804-1878). In addition to these there were others, locally eminent but perhaps less widely known, like Henry Marsh, the eminent teacher and general practitioner; Crampton, Carmichael and Cusack the surgeons; William Wallace, who popularized the use of iodide of potash; Francis Rynd, the originator of subcutaneous medication; Francis R. Cruise, an early endoscopist; and the obstetricians Collins, Johnston, Montgomery, Churchill, Beatty and Kennedy. The association of so many men of talent and so many others of outstanding ability was doubtless partly a matter of chance, but we cannot but feel that two other factors were operative; one, the catalytic effect on the group of the more stimulating minds among them, the other, their ability to see and to grasp the opportunity created by the discoveries in physical diagnosis made by the French school at the beginning of the nineteenth century.