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Digitally Preserving RCSI’s History

The World Digital Preservation Day theme this year is “why preserve?” This is a question many digital archivists ask themselves as they wait hours for content to upload, painstakingly attach metadata to files and spend dizzying amounts on preservation systems. I’ll be answering this question in the context of the RCSI Digital Heritage Collections and also highlighting some of the gems of our collections along the way. First, it’s important to explain what I mean by “digital preservation”. It’s a term that gets a lot of blank looks when I try to explain my job to people at parties. The official Digital Preservation Coalition definition is digital preservation “refers to all of the actions required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or technological and organisational change”.  At RCSI, digital preservation involves a combination of preserving born-digital files and preserving digitised physical materials. “Born-digital” refers to digital...
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Recent posts

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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