Norman Moore

“ No one who has read the Irish chronicles could think it likely that a hero of the Dal Cais would care to be celebrated as a reliever of the burdens of the Leinstermen, first his enemies, and then his subjects. Brian was called Boroimhe or Brian of the Tribute, because of the tribute which he had levied throughout Ireland, and which brought plenty to the Dal Cais, but was taken from the Leinstermen, the Connaughtmen, the men of Meath, and of Ulster, with as firm a hand as ever the most famous borama was seized from the descendants of Eochu mac Echach by the kings of Tara. ”

“ Morgagni's 'De Sedibus et Causis Morborum,' the work which may be regarded as the foundation of the study of diseased structures and organs, is long, intricate, and difficult of reference. Morgagni's method, which is also that of the other predecessors of Baillie, is to state in full the history and symptoms of cases, with a minute account of all the appearances found on opening the body after death. Baillie's was the first book in which morbid anatomy was treated as a subject by itself. He followed the plan of treatises on normal anatomy, going through the morbid appearances of each organ. ”

“ A chair of zoology and comparative anatomy was founded at Cambridge, and Newton was appointed the first professor in March 1866; he held office till his death. His lectures were the least important part of his work as professor. The subject was almost unknown in the university, whether among the undergraduates or the ruling authorities, and the professor had to create a general interest in it and to improve the museum and other apparatus for its study. Newton did his best to make the acquaintance of every undergraduate who had any taste for natural history and to encourage him. ”

“ Bernard knew French, Spanish, and Italian, and it was said that he had read through all the volumes of his vast collection. Bernard's memory was extraordinary, and his friends were often astonished at his full, ready, and exact replies to abstruse questions of literature. His books were collected for use, and he had no care for gilt backs and wide margins. The medical part of his library was reputed to be the largest collection of books on physic ever made in England. Though of delicate constitution, he never allowed ill-health to prevent his studies, and continued them to the end of his life. ”

“ When he grew up he converted pagans, defeated devils, raised the dead, and boiled water without fire. Most of his miracles have no local colouring or individual propriety, and are merely part of the composition of his biographers; but some fragments of genuine history seem contained in his lives, the best being that in which he bids Themaria, queen of Diarmait, king of Meath, find the way of her salvation in dressing the sores of a leper. ”

“ He wrote to his aunt (12 Dec. 1780) : ‘I would fondly believe, that if to propose no selfish views as the ends of my ambition entitle, in any degree, to the smiles of heaven, there is a claim which I may prefer.’ It was the lofty spirit indicated in this sentence and his freedom from any but high-minded aims that made Currie respected and prominent in Liverpool. He was elected physician to the dispensary, and soon after, with Roscoe, Rathbone, Professor Smyth, and others, established a literary society, of which he became president. ”

“ In all probability the hospital library, dispersed in the reign of Henry VIII, contained other manuscripts in his hand. Cok is no doubt buried within the hospital, but his grave is unknown, and his chartulary, to the faithfulness of which a great chest full of the original charters bears testimony, remains his only monument in the foundation to which he gave so many years' service. The manuscripts of Cok are the only authorities for his life. ”

“ The author seems to derive most of his information from his own observations, and, though he copies no one, is clearly a follower of Sydenham, a student of sick men rather than of physicians' books, but at the same time eager to recognise and apply remarks drawn from original observation whenever he meets them in the works of ancients or of moderns. He more than once quotes with praise the remark of Hippocrates that whoever knows the nature of the disease knows the method of cure, but he is at the same time careful and rational in his use of drugs and general method of treatment. ”

“ O'ROURKE, TIERNAN (d. 1172) , king of Breifne, called in Irish Tighearnan Ua Ruairc, was head of the clans known as the Ui Briuin, or as the race of Aedh finn, and ruled Breifne, called in English state papers ‘the Breny,’ a district including the modern counties of Leitrim and Cavan; and Conmaicne, which corresponds to the county of Longford. He first appears in the chronicles in 1124, and at that date had a son, Gillabroide, who was slain in battle with the Connaughtmen. ”

“ Whistler was a young man trying to utilise an imperfect knowledge of the well-known but not yet printed discovery of a great scientific investigator. What little information there is in his thesis is due to Glisson, while Glisson owes nothing to him. The ‘Tractatus de Rachitide’ will always remain one of the glories of English medicine. To his description of the morbid anatomy as observable to the naked eye, subsequent writers, and even so laborious a pathologist as Sir William Jenner, have added little. All writers on the diseases of children agree in their admiration of the book. ”

“ They consulted together on every difficulty, and at Constantinople were known as the ambassador and the chevalier, and it was considered as important to secure the influence of the one as of the other. Thus constant throughout life they are buried side by side, under the same marble canopy, and are every year commemorated as benefactors of their college, where they jointly founded two fellowships and two scholarships, anxious to encourage in future generations the formation of friendships at the university as true and as lasting as their own. ”

“ He was not perfectly acquainted with the Irish language, and perhaps this accounts for the fact that, while sometimes giving the stories more beauties than he takes away, he misses something of the reality of ancient life, and seems to talk of a shadowy scene, and not of the real deeds of men and women. Several of the poems of his own experience are admirable, and will probably have a permanent popularity in Ireland. The ‘Elegy on Thomas Davis,’ ‘Willy Gilliland,’ and the ‘Lines on the Liffey in Mesgedra’ are not faultless, but they are beautiful poems with a true Irish air. ”

“ He wrote a history of the wars of Thomond from 1194 to 1318, called ‘Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh.’ This is not a chronicle, but a finished historical composition, giving a very full account from contemporary sources of the long struggle for the possession of Clare with the De Clares, which ended in the defeat and death of Robert de Clare and his son, and the final expulsion of the Normans and their allies at the battle of Disert O'Dea in 1318. Important events are celebrated in verse, which is as good as the admirable prose which makes up the great part of the book. ”

“ In body as well as mind he was distinguished by the extraordinary energy which he threw into his pursuits. He often walked from Oxford to London in a day, and, though a man of slender make, mowed an acre of heavy grass in a single day with his unaided scythe. ”

“ Ciaran was no doubt a real person, the actual founder of the famous monastery and school of Clonmacnoise. He was a pure Irish saint, of an ancient Ulster family, which could be traced back through twenty-three generations, adhering to the letter as well asthe spirit of his gospel, giving anything he had to any one who asked for it, appreciating a joke, of powerful blessing, violent in his curses, a warm defender of his ecclesiastical tribe (Life, c. xxx) , and fond, like Columba, of the old tales of Erin. ”

“ George Keble, a London surgeon, but not a member of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, and often praises his master: 'Sure Alexander the Great was never more bound to Aristotle his master for his lessons in philosophic than I was bound to him for giving me the first light and entrance into the knowledge of this noble art of chirurgerie.' Clowes began practice in 1563 as a surgeon in the army commanded by Ambrose, earl of Warwick, in France, and on this expedition began his lifelong friendship with John Banester the surgeon (Banester, Antidotarie, 1589; Clowes, Treatise on Struma, 1602) . ”

“ Twenty-three cases are described, and the most important conclusion is ‘that the cow-pox protects the human constitution from the infection of small-pox.’ The experience of nearly a hundred years has led to the acceptance of this conclusion throughout the civilised world; and by the whole body of the medical profession, and of the very few men who have declined to regard it as an invaluable addition to the practice of medicine, a majority do so on grounds which have no relation to scientific observation. ”

“ He would not allow himself to be again nominated, but the society could hardly have found in London a man more deserving of honour as a disinterested and accurate observer in the laborious field of morbid anatomy. ”

“ In 980, on the death of Domhnall, a descendant of Eoghan Mor, and therefore of the northern Ui Neill, it was the turn of the southern Ui Neill to provide the king of all Ireland, and Maelsechlainn succeeded. He immediately made an alliance with Eochaidh, king of Ulidia, besieged Dublin for three days and nights, seized a great plunder from the Danes, and compelled them to release all their Irish captives. ”

“ MACLONAN, FLANN (d. 896) , Irish historian and poet, was a native of northern Connaught, and belonged to the family afterwards known as MacGilla Cheallaigh, who were a sept of the Ui Fiachrach, the descendants of Fiachra, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, king of Ireland in the fourth century. His father was Lonan, son of Conmach, who was fifth in descent from that Guaire, king of Connaught, whose hospitality was so famous that to this day 'go fial Guaire,' 'as generous as Guaire,' is a common expression in Ireland. ”

“ Pope wrote that Garth was ‘the best natured of men,’ and that ‘his death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint or philosopher famous.’ His portrait, of kit-cat size, by Kneller, hangs to the left of the fireplace in the censor's room at the College of Physicians, and gives him a fresh complexion and cheerful expression, in a flowing wig. ”

“ LUGHAIDH (d. 507) , king of Ireland, son of Laeghaire mac Neill, grandson of Niall Naoighiallach and great-grandson of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, each of whom was ardrigh of Ireland, became himself ardrigh after the battle of Ocha in Meath in 484, in which his second cousin, Oillioll Molt, king of Ireland, son of King Dathi, son of King Fiachra, brother of Niall Naoighiallach, was slain. Lughaidh was supported in his struggle for Tara by Muircheartach Mac Earca, his cousin, and the most powerful chief in the northern half of Ireland, as well as by the Dal n' Araidhe and some of the Leinstermen. ”

“ Life in the school is quaintly described, including the difficulty of teaching the king of Tara’s daughter, and the Irish puns made by the scholars. After leaving Cluain Irard the saint wandered about releasing slaves, then went to the Aran Isles and was ordained by Abbot Enna; then visited St. Senan at Scattery Island in the mouth of the Shannon. Then working up the stream, after many adventures by the way, he established himself on an island in Loch Ree, but, thinking it too luxurious a retreat found out the solitude of Clonmacnoise and there finally settled. ”

“ The last chief king of Ireland of the ancient line was the Maelsechlainn whom Brian had for a time dispossessed, and when he died in 1022 no king of Tara was ever after able to enforce even the slight general control exercised in former times, and the king James, who united the rule of England and Scotland, was the next real king of the whole of Ireland. ”

“ The tales illustrate perseverance, temper, economy, and are followed by a curious moral play, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ In 1822 she concluded this series by ‘Cottage Biography, being a Collection of Lives of the Irish Peasantry.’ The lives are those of real persons, and contain some interesting passages, especially in the life of James Dunn, a pilgrim to Loch Derg. Many traits of Irish country life appear in these books, and they preserve several of the idioms of the English-speaking inhabitants of the Pale. ”

“ He had read a great deal, and says that he had made Calmathius ‘as it were a day-starre, or christallin cleare looking-glasse.’ Tagalthius, Guido, Vigo, and Quercetanus are his other chief text-books, and he had read seventeen English authors on medicine; but with all this book-knowledge he trusted much to his own observation, and a modern spirit of inquiry pervades his pages which makes them altogether different from the compilations from authorities which are to be found in the surgical works of his contemporaries Baker and Banester. ”