RCSI Heritage Collections

As we approach the anniversary of Sir Charles Cameron's birth on 16 July 1830, RCSI Heritage Collections is pleased to announce an award of Heritage Council funding to digitise and make publicly available for the first time selected material from Cameron's private papers. Portrait of Sir Charles Cameron Sir Charles Cameron (1830-1921) was at various points in his lifetime a Fellow, Professor, President and historian of RCSI, but is best remembered today for his contribution to improving standards of public health in Ireland in his capacity as Medical Superintendent Officer of Health for Dublin Corporation from 1879 to 1921. Cameron’s research, publications, and campaigning during this period led to dramatic improvements in living conditions, life expectancy, and general population health in Dublin at a time when disease was rife in the city. The Heritage Council’s Heritage Stewardship Fund was instituted in 2022 to support staff in local authorities, state agencies, and third l...

In honour of Bloomsday this year, RCSI Heritage Collections looks at some of the intersections that can be mapped between the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, James Joyce and the history of medicine in Dublin Ulysses by James Joyce So, will you find RCSI in Ulysses? Yes you will yes... Seek a Joycean connection in Dublin and you shall likely find one.  RCSI’s historic location with a campus spanning from 123 St. Stephen's Green, places it in the right setting. But the College's existence in the realm of Ulysses features more through its people than its locale. Mercer's operating theatre (1908) - 'The Quality of Mercer's', J.B. Lyons In 1904, the year Ulysses takes place, the Mercer building on Mercer St. & Stephen St. Lwr. was operating as a hospital. Today, Mercer’s is part of the RCSI’s Dublin city campus and is home to RCSI Heritage Collections and to Mercer's Medical Centre . In May 1904, Mercer’s Hospital held an extravagant fundraising event...

To commemorate the centenary of the death of Sir Charles Alexander Cameron, which occurred on Saturday 27 February 2021, the RCSI Library team is delighted to announce the launch of www.rcsi.com/Cameron a new commemorative website highlighting his life, work and legacy. Sir Charles A Cameron,  RCSI Heritage Collections The Corporation of Dublin appointed Cameron as Public Analyst in 1862 (as did Limerick, Waterford and most other boroughs and counties in Ireland). He qualified in medicine in the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1868 and was appointed Professor of Hygiene at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1860. As Medical Officer of Health for Dublin from 1874, Cameron was a tireless campaigner for better hygiene, health and welfare for the city and its people. His discoveries, innovations, research, publications and campaigning led to improved public health. The Dublin death rate between 1901 and 1911 reduced...

To celebrate the centenary of the enhanced 2nd edition  Sir Charles A Cameron' s immensely rich and historically valuable book History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, The Irish Medical Schools etc , RCSI Heritage Collections have made it available to read and search on our website. Sir Charles A. Cameron (1830-1921) Cameron was an amazing individual who not only held the position of Executive Officer of Health and Public Analyst for Dublin for 59 years, he was President of RCSI in 1885, he fought for better sanitation and living conditions for those living in the Dublin tenements but he also wrote a thoroughly researched and readable history of the College. Click on the link below to read and search Cameron's great tome. History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, The Irish Medical Schools etc , by Sir Charles Cameron

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...

A couple of weeks ago the RCSI Heritage Collections was paid a visit by one of the RCSI Accounts Department and he came bearing gifts! While clearing out an old storage room they came across College accounts in pristine condition and dating from 1915 to 1960. RCSI accounts dating from 1915 to 1960 The first account just happens to be from this week 100 years ago. Spooky! Accounts like these contain a wealth of information and not just about accounts but about social history. They can also let you see what services/items cost at the time and who was being paid, be they an individual or a company. Looking at the ones below you will see some familiar names associated with the College popping up   Professor (Alfred) Scott   Professor (George Jameson) Johnston   Sir C(harles) A. Cameron RCSI Accounts from 5th April 1915 One name that struck me was the Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, Hugh Alexander Auchinleck. Not only is the name a little unusual but Auchin...

On Monday 6 th April O’Connell Street will be transported back in time to 1915 when Dubliners were fighting a war in foreign lands and another was soon to erupt on their streets. What were the living conditions like for these city dwellers a century ago? What medical instruments were being used to carry out surgical procedures? RSCI Heritage Collections will be on hand at RTÉ’s Road to the Rising event to shed some light on these and other medical archive questions.  Advertisements from the Medical Directory of 1915 Advertisements from the Medical Directory of 1915 Advertisements from the  Medical Directory of 1915 Copies of the Medical Directory will be available to consult, advertisements from the early 1900s will be on view and medical instruments will be on display. Sir Charles Cameron, President of RCSI 1885-1886, was Public Health Officer for Dublin in the early 1900s. He published meticulous annual reports on the sanitation, housing and public...

The Crampton Memorial Fountain This drinking fountain, which was located on the junction of College, D'Olier and Pearse Street, was erected in Sir Philip Crampton's honour in 1862. It was designed by Joseph Kirk, RHA, and was constructed of bronze, Aberdeen and Irish granite and black marble. It was 25 foot high and featured Indian water lillies, abacus (the water plant), dolphin's mouths, shells, a serpent, a saw, a heron, a pelican and a bust of Crampton himself. It was warmly referred to as 'The Cauliflower' or 'The Pineapple' by Dubliners. Quite a unique design and not to everyone's liking, as Sir Charles Cameron makes known in his History of the Royal College of Surgeon in Ireland  'A marble statue of Crampton from the master chisel of Foley, placed in the College Hall, would have been a more suitable memorial of him than the inartistic structure in College Street'. Why was Crampton given a memorial fountain, be it a weird looking o...

It being the day of Samhain the door to the other world slowly creaks open and the desire to visit one of Dublin's oldest and lesser visited cemeteries has struck the RCSI Heritage Collections. Mount Jerome Cemetery was established in 1836 and is the resting place of a number of prominent Irish surgeons. So who has made Mount Jerome there eternal home? Only a man with a name that couldn't be more fitting for Samhain, Mr. Robert Graves . Graves' tombstone in Mount Jerome Robert Graves (1797-1853) Graves was a distinguished scholar who started his studies in Trinity College Dublin under the tutelage of Rev. Ralph Wilde, the brother of the Sir William Wilde. Graves graduated in Arts in 1815 and deciding upon medicine graduated with an M.B in 1818. Graves recognised the importance and promoted the need for post mortem examinations by the pathologist. He studied in a number of European universities (Berlin, Austria, Paris,Italy) and, according to Charles...

RCSI Museum circa 1900s Museum's full of curious specimens, eerie skeletons and natural wonders are fascinating. A fascination that has been awoken in younger generations through the captivating TV programmes by David Attenborough. The College housed quite a large museum and was even pronounced as 'one of the most valuable in Europe' by Friedrich Tiedemann and Jules Cloquet  in the 1800s. In 1820 the College decided to establish a museum on a level par with the scale of their other departments. A committee was formed and they were empowered to appoint a Curator at once. Candidates for the position of Curator had to exhibit specimens of their work.    Shekleton's mercurial specimen Baby orangutan skeleton E.a.90 A young anatomist named John Shekleton presented his specimen of a mercurial injection of the lymphatics of the lower extremity which, it has been said, excited the wonder of all who saw it. This specimen is still on view in the Anatomy ...

Early in his career, and for many subsequent years, Mr. Butcher excited the admiration of medical students by exhibitions of his muscular development. He was wont to roll up his shirt-sleeves before operating, thereby exposing to view biceps of much more than average proportions. His dark c omplexion, well-oiled, raven black, long hair and good features rendered his appearance remarkable. - Sir Charles A. Cameron Upon reading this description of Richard George Herbert Butcher, President of the RCSI 1866-67, the Heritage Collections couldn't help but find out more about this Irish surgeon. Richard George Butcher (1819-1891) Butcher was born on 19th April 1819 in Danesfort, Killarney to a family of English origin. He was 1 of 13 children born to Vice-Admiral Samuel Butcher and Elizabeth Herbert. butcher received his primary eduction in Hamblin's and Porter's School in Cork. He began his medical studies under John Woodroffe in the Cork School of Medicine. After two ...

During the summer the College was delighted to acquire an exquisite Irish Arts and Crafts Freedom Box that was presented to Sir Charles Cameron (RCSI President 1885-1886) to house the Freedom of the City scroll he had been awarded by Dublin Corporation in 1910. The rectangular box is quite large and heavy as it is made from brass, copper, coloured marble and semi-precious stones. Sir Charles Cameron Freedom Box presented to him in 1910  Hidden inside is a compartment that is released by pressing a concealed lock. Housed within this compartment is the beautifully illuminated silk-mounted scroll which still retains its splendid bright colours.  The extract from the scroll below records Cameron’s devotion to the people and city of Dublin as their Public Health Advisor That almost half a century of devoted exertion on his part to the extermination of diseases and everything inimical to public health within the City has resulted in a courageous and efficient pu...