Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the hospitals of Dublin : with appendices / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Marjesty.

  • Ireland. Dublin Hospitals' Commission.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the hospitals of Dublin : with appendices / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Marjesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    no lack of able teachers in Dublin ; but instead of the elementary schools being within the precincts or in the immediate neighbourhood of the hospital, from the officers of which the teachers are selected, the schools are in general at a distance from the hospitals, and the professors in them usually obtained from several instead of from one and the same hospital;* consequently the pupils are unable to enjoy as they ought the advantage of witnessing the practical illustrations of the doctrines inculcated on them at lecture, even, indeed, if the opinions of their teachers bo not combatted, instead of confirmed by the physician or surgeon not belonging to their own school, whose hospital practice they attend. The disadvantage of the absence of immediate connexion between the elementary and dogmatic, and the clinical and practical teaching, seems to have pressed itself upon the attention of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, for the Act of the 25th George III., c. 42, An Act for Estahiishing a Complete School of Physick in this Kingdom, {Ireland), after the appointment of three instead of one King's Professor, and three University Professors, and the direction that proper rooms s])Ould be provided in the said (Trinity) College for giving the said lectures, proceeds, and whereas clinical lectures are highly necessary for promoting the success of the School of Physick, be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the said several professors shall alternately give the said clinical lectures, &c., and that until an hospital can be provided for giving the said clinical lectures, the President, or in his absence the Ex-President and Fellows of the said College of Physicians are hereby authorized to appoint the said clinical lectures to be given in such hospital or hospitals in the city of Dublin as shall bo found most convenient for that purpose. To carry on this plan, an arrangement was made with the Governors of Mercer's Hospital, and four of their wards were set apart for clinical teaching by the King's and University Professors. This connexion continued for aboitt six years, but was then broken up in consequence of some dissatisfaction about the treatment of a case; and the Governors resuming their wards, the pupils lost the benefit of clinical instruction. The College of Physicians, therefore, determined on building a hospital, and mainly, it is believed, by the influence of Dr. Robert Perceval, induced the Irish Parliament to pass the Act 31st George III., c. 185, An Act to explain and amend an Act entitled an Act for establishing a Complete School oj Physick in this Kingdom {Ireland), by which the annual surplus of Sir Patrick Dun's property, after paying the King's Professor on his foundation, was directed to be applied to the building of a hospital. This surplus was, however, found quite inadequate to build a hospital with only thirty beds; and, consequently, repeated applications for assistance were made to Parliament, which, from time to time, voted grants of money till a hosjiital arose capable of accommodating not merely thirty, but one hundred and fifty beds, with the addition of apartments for a museum, library, and for the meetings of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians, perhaps in their character of trustees of Sir Patrick Dun's property. The same inconvenience of an elementary school without an associated hospital for the illustration of disease, has of late years been felt by the School of Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and led to the foundation of City of Dublin Hospital in connexion Avith it. In 1831, at a meeting of the College, it was resolved, That it would be expedient to found a Clinical Hospital, in connexion with the College of Surgeons. But impediments as to the application of the corporate funds to such purpose prevented the resolution being carried out by the College. The matter, however, did not fall to the ground, for six of the ten Professors of the School of Surgery attached to the Royal College, which six were unattached to any hospital, determined to establish a Clinical Hospital, virtually for the clinical teaching of the College School, though strictly speaking it could not be called the College Clinical Hospital. Their exertions met with great encouragement, and the City of Dublin Hospital was opened in the following yeai% and receives, as already mentioned, very liberal support from subscriptions, which are obtained by the energy of those connected with it; and gives proof that the inhabitants of Dublin might, with a little more painstaking, be induced to give greater countenance to other important medical insti- tutions in great need of it. The Elementary Schools of Medicine and Surgery, at the present time existing in Dublin are six in number, of which the School of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, and the School of Physic at Trinity College, must be considered pubhc, whilst the others are private. The first attempt at forming a Medical School seems to have originated with the Pro- vost and Senior Fellows of Trinity College, who in 1710 set apart ground for the erection of an Anatomical Theatre and Laboratory within their precincts, which were opened in August of the following year, when Dr. Robinson and Surgeon Green were appointed to officiate in the Anatomy School as Lecturer and Anatomist, Avhich was probably the first of the three lectorsliips many years since estabhshed in the University of this Kingdom (Ireland) for the teaching of Anatomy and Surgery, Chymistry and Botany, referred to in the Act of the 25th George III. The actual foundation and endowment of a complete School of Physick in this King- dom arose, however, out of the noble bequest by Sir Patrick Dun of his whole property for the estabhshing a Professor of Physic in the College of Physicians in Dubhn, be it by Act of Parliament or otherwise howsoever. He died in 1714, and in 1715a charter was obtained incorporating the Professorship, and appointing perpetual succession, under the title of the King's Professorship of Physic in the city of Dublin; and Dr. Griffith was elected first Professor. The property had been left to Lady Dun for her life, and for a time she and the College of Physicians seem to have gone on smoothly; but disputes arose, and * Appendix, No. 8.