RCSI Heritage Collections

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...

St. Patrick banishing snakes from Ireland Image courtesy of Jim Fitzpatrick As snakes are associated with medicine through the Rod of Asclepius the RCSI Heritage Collections thought it apt to have a picture of snakes to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, even if they are getting banished! Asclepius , a deity associated with healing and medicinal arts in Greek mythology, is depicted in ancient statues, pottery and coins with snakes and the staff. Because of this association a particular type of non-venomous snake was often used in healing rituals by the ancients. These snakes crawled freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept.  Illustration of the Rod of Asclepius. Aphorisms of Hippocrates dated to 1571. The snake and staff symbol can be seen clearly. Image courtesy of  John P. McGovern Historical Collection If Asclepius is the 'god of medicine' than Hippocrates is the 'father of med...

     As the snow falls and the wind makes it feel like the Arctic outside, the idea of a warm fire in a lovely fireplace is on many people's minds. E specially  ours! So imagine our delight when we heard that there was a Bossi fireplace in the President's Office in the College. Beautiful Pietro Bossi fireplace   Pietro Bossi, an Italian craftsman believed to be from the Lombardy region in Northern Italy, came to Dublin in the 1780s.  Bossi is understood to have been brought to Ireland by Lord Clanricarde to carry out stucco and scagliola work for him. Scagliola is a technique of producing works that have been inlaid with marble, semi-precious stones and coloured paste. Bossi stayed in Dublin from 1785 to 1798 producing fireplaces and tables in the Neo-classical design. He is believed to have produced stucco work for the Earl of Aldborough, Baronscourt Estate , Co. Tyrone and Charlemont House also known as the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. Detail ...

The Robert Smith that springs to a lot of people's minds when the words 'The Cure' are mentioned is probably this chap.... Being the blog of the RCSI Heritage Collections you can imagine that the lead singer of the 1980s gothic rock band is not who pops into our minds. Instead the man being referred to here is Robert William Smith, FRCSI. A surgeon so revered that his obituary from The Lancet on 8 November 1873 begins with the sentence 'Not Dublin only, but every medical school throughout the country has sustained a severe loss by the death of this able and highly accomplished pathologist'.   Robert William Smith was born in Dublin on 12 October 1807. His father died when Smith is still quite young but his mother, Isabella, went to great lengths to ensure her son's education. Smith began his medical studies in Trinity College Dublin graduating with a B.A in 1828 and an M.A in 1832. He continued his studies by being apprenticed to Richard Carmichael ...

Is there anything more romantic than giving your loved one a bottle of Valentine's Meat Juice this Valentine's Day?  A bottle of Valentine's Meat Juice still sealed and containing juice (RCSI/MI/1544) There is if you use it to disguise the taste of arsenic as Florence Maybrick did in 1889! But first what is Valentine's Meat juice? Brought into production in Richmond, VA, in 1871, Valentine’s Meat Juice became popular with orthodox physicians and was advertised in professional publications, including the   British Medical Journal . Its inventor, Mann S.Valentine, told of its origins in his   A Brief History of the  Production of Valentine’s Meat Juice, together with  Testimonials of the Medical Profession   (1874). A family member, thought to be his wife Anna Maria Grey Valentine, was in great danger from ‘ a severe and protracted  derangement of the organs of digestion .’ She could not take normal food, yet none of the available inv...

Nowadays when you go in for a minor or major operation, there is no question over anaesthetic being used. That wasn't the case for patients until the 1840s, poor devils. Up until then the patient was, in some cases, restrained to stop them thrashing around and putting the surgeon off his work. If lucky the patient was given alcohol or opium to help ease the pain. In other cases a piece of wood or leather was given to bite down on or, if you were a soldier, a bullet. Illustration of a patient ready for surgery in the 16th century Taken from The History of Ophthalmology   On 16th October 1846 John Collins Warren undertook the first surgical operation using ether as an anaesthetic in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Less than three months later an Irish surgeon would carry out the first amputation under the influence of ether ever preformed in Ireland. John McDonnell, father of Robert McDonnell who has featured previously in this  blog , was born in Belfast o...

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...