Contributions to the history of medicine in Ireland. Part I, The history of periodic medical literature in Ireland, including notices of the medical and philosophical societies of Dublin / [W.R. Wilde].

  • Wilde, W. R. (William Robert), 1815-1876
Date:
1846
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the history of medicine in Ireland. Part I, The history of periodic medical literature in Ireland, including notices of the medical and philosophical societies of Dublin / [W.R. Wilde]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and collated, with those detached notices of medicine, disease, and medical men, which exist in the literary annals of our country, they will form, we fear not to assert, a record of me¬ dicine in point of interest not inferior to, and extending from a period as remote, as that of any country in north-western Europe. It is not a subject, however, to be put forward hastily, nor without due consideration, and the examination of a vast number of authorities, but we promise our readers to take it up in detached portions, from time to time, in our subsequent Numbers, as materials shall be afforded us. In the early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions the writings of the Hon. Robert Boyle(5) facetiously styled by a lecturer at the Dublin Society, “ the father of Chemistry and the son of the Earl of Cork,” played no inconsiderable part, but they relate chiefly to chemistry and the abstract sciences. The works of Dr. John Stearne, the first President of the Col¬ lege of Physicians (1661), were chiefly theological, and we do not find any notice of him in the transactions of the Royal Society;—neither does Edmund O’Meara, who wrote the “ Examen Diatribee Thomce Willisii de Febribus, * * * cui accesserunt Histories aliquot Medicce rariores” (London, 1665, 8vo.), figure among the worthies of that body: and his father Dermod O’Meara, a distinguished Irish physician and poet, flourished before the days of periodical literature. About this time flourished the celebrated Valentine Great- (6) Several of Boyle’s works, not published by the Royal Society, treated more immediately on medicine than his education or the general tenor of his writings would lead us to expect, for instance: Physiological Essays. London, 4to., 1662, and 1669. Memoirs for the Natural History of human Blood, especially tho Spirit of that Liquor. London, 8vo. 1684. Of the Reconcileableness of specifick Medicines to the Corpuscular Philo¬ sophy, to which is annexed, a Discourse about the Advantages of the LTso of simple Medicines, proposed by Way of Invitation to it. London, 1685, 8vo. Medicina Hydrostatica, &c. London, 8vo. 1690. And among his posth- mous works edited by Dr. Shaw, are:—Experimenta et Observationes Phvsicse. 1691, 8vo. ; and also Medicinal Experiments. London, 1718., 8vo.