RCSI Heritage Collections

Heritage Week starts next week and RCSI Heritage Collections are delighted to be running tours and talks on Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th August. Tours will take place at 11am, 2pm and 6pm each day and will be followed by a talk entitled Dublin in the Rare Ol' Times The talk will look at what it was like to live in Dublin in the decades leading up to the 1916 Easter Rising with a particular focus on the living, health, sanitation and hospital conditions during those years.  Advertisements taken from the Medical Directory  of the time show what new medical devices were being sold, what courses were available and the latest waterproofers in fashion! You will notice some of these establishments are still around in Dublin today.  The horrendous living conditions endured by those in the tenements and the diseases Dubliners battled on a daily basis will also be touched upon. Tenement in Kilmainham in 1914 Sir Charles Cameron's...

These days the majority of prescription drugs are man-made by large pharmaceutical companies. But before the GlaxoSmithKline's of today, what did people take for stomach pain, to help stop deafness and cure freckles? The answer is they looked to the natural world, both animals and plants, to produce medicinal remedies, tinctures and lotions. By looking at the book Zoologia Medicinalis Hibernica written in 1739 it seems a lot of ailments were treatable by various animal parts. Zoologia Medicinalis Hibernica by John Keogh 1739 Keogh's book not only tells us what part(s) of an animal can cure your ailment. He also tells you how to prepare the animal part(s) to be eaten, drunk, rubbed on or poured over. Below can be seen his entry for the medicinal uses of a deer, which are quite extensive and in some cases bizarre! How deer can help treat diseases according to Keogh    Who knew that mixing the filings or ashes of a deer's hoof with bear's grease and ...