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Sleepless in Surgery: A History of Anaesthesia at RCSI and Beyond

 Death or Surgery: The Quest for a Painless, Waking Sleep  On October 16th, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton, a dentist, completed the first successful public demonstration of inhaled ether, relieving surgical pain at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It is because of this first successful public demonstration of the use of an anaesthetic that each year on October 16th we celebrate the history and discovery of anaesthesia for use in surgeries. If one can imagine that before these pioneering doctors, surgeons and dentists, any kind of medical procedure and the inevitable pain that came with it meant copious amounts of alcohol, herbal mixtures containing opium alkaloids, hypnotism or pieces of leather/wood to bite down on. This was the backdrop to which Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829); Henry Hill Hickman (1800-1830); William Clarke (1819-1898); Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1878); Horace Wells (1815-1848); William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868); John MacDonnell (1796...
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Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Collection: A Dose of History

In celebration of World Pharmacists Day, RCSI Heritage Collections are highlighting materials in the Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson (HCR) Pharmaceutical Chemists collection and marking events which have occurred to celebrate the release of the collection to the public.  The collection was donated to RCSI Heritage Collections in October 2023, by Michael and Christopher Shiell, both great-grandsons of one of the company’s founders, Henry Conyngham. The Shiell brothers worked as joint-managing directors of the company until the pharmacies were sold to Boots in 1998. The following blog post will outline brief historical context of the company and its founders and will then explore some collection highlights and end with how researchers can access the collection.  Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Pharmaceutical Chemists:  Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Pharmaceutical Chemists was founded in 1897 by William Hayes (1843-1918), Henry Conyngham (1845-1931) and Sir Thomas W. Robin...
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RCSI Dentistry: A Bite-sized History

  As RCSI’s new School of Dentistry opens this week, we thought we’d look back at its predecessor. RCSI has the distinction of creating the first Professorship in Dental Surgery in Ireland or Britain.   This was in 1884, when the inaugural appointee was Richard Theodore Stack (1848 – 1909).   Curiously, Stack never intended to be a dentist.   He had studied medicine at Trinity College, coming first in his class and winning various scholarships, and seemed destined for a glittering medical career – until, that is, a bout of rheumatic fever left him so deaf, at the age of 26, that he could no longer use a stethoscope.   He switched his focus, graduating in dentistry from Harvard University in 1877.   For the rest of his life, he actively disliked being called ‘Doctor’ – his door-plate, visiting cards and book stamp all read ‘Dentist Stack'. Dentist Richard Theodore Stack by Walter Osborne  (courtesy of the British Dental Association Museum). Returning to...
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Mercer's Hospital ~ 300th Anniversary ~ A Shelter, Hospital & A Space of Medicine, and Learning

This year marks 300 years since a lady by the name of Mary Mercer set up a shelter for poor girls in 1724 on the site we now know as the Mercer's building.   However, the site itself boasts over 700 years of medical history on Stephen Street Lower in Dublin. Originally known as St. Stephen’s Chapel and thought to be in existence since approximately 1230, the site had become a Lazar House (Leper Hospital) by 1394 but, returning to 1724, after ten years of the home acting as a shelter, in 1734 management of the site was taken over by a group of physicians and surgeons who together founded Mercer’s Hospital as a charitable institution which continued to operate for another 249 years. The following blog will explore aspects of the last 300 years of medical history at the Mercer's site and its connections to the wider medical profession in Ireland.     Mercer's Hospital c. 1734   RCSI Heritage Collections, J.B. Lyons Records Mercer's Hospital logo and motto- ‘Fac Similite...
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Potions, Poisons and Pharmacists

Earlier this year, RCSI Heritage Collections was delighted to receive the very generous donation of the archive belonging to the well-known chemists, Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson.   We have only recently begun to explore the collection, but we can already tell it is a treasure trove, an unparalleled insight into a profession undergoing a century of relentless change.  Given that Halloween occurred last week, Project Archivist, Erin McRae – who will be cataloguing this collection – has looked into HCR’s bottles, ledgers and recipe books to bring us this blogpost on one potentially ghoulish aspect of the pharmacists’ trade: the use of poisons.  An apothecary in his laboratory concocting a mixture. Wood engraving by F.Mc F(?), 1876, after H.S. Marks. Wellcome Collection Poisons and their Uses: From High Fashion to Medicine In the popular imagination, poisons, and their potential to cause death has long been a source of morbid fascination. Poison is defined as “a subs...
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