RCPI to host Ireland’s first ever Sexual Health Awareness Week

Next week, from the 28 to 31 May, RCPI will be hosting Ireland's first Sexually Health Awareness Week (SHAW), which is aimed at promoting sexually health awareness at a national level. A mix of public meetings, debates and interactive workshops will take place in RCPI, all of which are free and open to the public.

You can view a full list of SHAW events here and book online here.

Some SHAW events will deal with very topical sexual health issues, such as choice in contraceptive provision, skills for parents when talking to their children about sex, the age of consent for sexually activity, transgender patient issues and care for victims of rape and sexual assault.

The programme for SHAW also reflects modern Ireland, a more multicultural and diverse society that thinks and behaves very differently to the Ireland of thirty years ago. The evolution of HIV treatment in Ireland over the past thirty years is the focus of a public lecture on Tuesday 29 May. And on the same day, the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme will launch its report Attitudes to Fertility, Sexual Health and Motherhood Among a Sample of Non-Irish National Ethnic Minority Women Living in Ireland. In the context of the changing face of religion in Ireland, Aids Care Education and Training (ACET) will be holding a workshop on how to address HIV-positive patients refusing medical treatment because of religious belief in divine intervention.

RCPI History of Medicine Research Award 2012

RCPI is delighted to announce the launch of the second annual RCPI History of Medicine Research Award. The award will be made as part of the Heritage Centre Lectures at the St. Luke's Symposium, to be held on Thursday 18 October 2012.

The RCPI History of Medicine Research Award is open to all researchers in the field of the history of medicine in Ireland, as well as related social and cultural history fields. The purpose of the award is to support and develop the study of the history of medicine in Ireland, and to promote the use of the library, archive and heritage item collections held by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. The research must be unpublished.

Applicants are asked to submit an abstract on their research (maximum 800 words) with the application form, by Friday 14 September 2012. A judging process will commence in September 2012 that will conclude with four finalists presenting their 15 minute research papers to an adjudication panel on Thursday 18 October 2012.

Click here to download the guidelines and applications form.

For further information on the RCPI History of Medicine Research Award, please contact Harriet Wheelock at harrietwheelock@rcpi.ie.

Last year's award was won by David Durnin, who gave a paper on War and Medicine: Irish Medical Involvement in the First World War. David is an IRCHSS Doctoral Scholar at the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, UCD, and you can find out more about his research here.

Onwards and upwards...

The Dun's Library cataloguing project is continuing apace and another milestone was passed last week when I catalogued the 11,000^th item! Although there is still have a long way to go, it has been great to see the numbers going upwards and know that all the hard work is paying off. The item in question is a pamphlet from the Fleetwood collection, which was donated by Dr. John Fleetwood, eminent physician and medical historian. I am also nearing the end of the e-cataloguing of the Fleetwood collection, which marks another important point in our ongoing project.

 

Oliver Goldsmith



The pamphlet is entitled "The mystery of Oliver Goldsmith's medical degree" by J. B. Lyons (1922-2007), another well respected physician, writer and medical historian. Lyons was born in Mayo and during his early career he served in the Mater Hospital. He was made a Member of this college in 1949, before moving to England and later serving as ship's doctor on a cargo liner sailing between Japan and South America. He settled in Manchester and married a Welsh nurse. They later returned to Dublin in 1955, where Lyons worked in St. Michael's Hospital, Dun Laoghaire and the Mercer Hospital. Lyons was made a Fellow of this College in 1959. He wrote numerous books, including a biography of Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957) and a study of the medical references in the work of James Joyce; this book is a part of the Fleetwood collection. Lyons also wrote a book entitled "What did I die of?': The deaths of Parnell, Wilde, Synge, and other literary Pathologies" on the medical conditions of well known Irish figures, which is also available in Dun's Library.

Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) was born in Ireland and received a B.A. from Trinity College in 1749. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and Leyden, but his efforts were desultory to say the least. Lyons' pamphlet focuses on the rumours surrounding Goldsmith's medical education as there seem to be no records of him in the registers in Edinburgh and Leyden. This is also coupled with the fact that his practice of medicine was very sporadic and wholly unsuccessful. However his lack of interest in medicine and its practice was simply due to the fact that his true passion was writing and it was this career that he pursued. Lyons also concludes that Goldsmith's medical degree was valid, although he did not practise medicine. He also worked variously as an apothecary's assistant and an usher of a school to pay his bills.

Goldsmith's most famous novel The Vicar of Wakefield which was published in 1866, was one of the most popular and widely read books in Victorian England and is mentioned in works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen to name but a few. His comic play She Stoops to Conquer is still performed around the world today and his poem The Deserted Village is also studied in universities as a classic example of 18^th century poetry. He also wrote eight volumes of work on natural science entitled An History of the Earth and Animated Nature, which seems to indicate his interest in science continued after his university days. Goldsmith's death was premature at the age of 40 and he is buried in London. There is a monument to him in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey with an epitaph written for him by his great friend Samuel Johnson. In recognition of their former student, Trinity College also has a statue of Goldsmith on their campus.

The Dodo, for Goldsmith's natural history

The medical, scientific and historical records mentioned in this post are all available in Dun's Library; see our online catalogue for more details. To make an appointment to view these, or any other material, please contact heritagecentre@rcpi.ie or phone 01-6698817.

Ruth Talbot,

Library Intern

Book of the Month: Rutty's An Essay towards a Natural History of the County of Dublin

John Rutty was born to a Quaker family in Wiltshire, England, on Christmas Day, 1698. He studied medicine at the University of Leyden, graduating M.D. in 1723. The following year, he came to Dublin where he practised as a physician for the rest of his life.

Like many of his contemporary physicians, Rutty had an interest in general science and natural history, beyond the bounds of pure medicine. Along with two colleagues, he founded the Medico-Philosophical Society in 1756 as a small, private society which met once a month to discuss scientific papers. The papers of this society are held by the RCPI Archive, for more details click here. He had a particular interest in botany and spent much time rambling in the countryside around Dublin.

This interest was eventually to culminate in the publication of his Essay towards a Natural History of the County of Dublin, in two volumes in 1772. The Dublin Society (now the Royal Dublin Society) gave a grant of £50 towards the publication. The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland also supported the venture and gave £30.

The book was one of the first of its type to be devoted to a single county in Ireland. It recorded all aspects of natural history in and around Dublin, with separate sections dealing with plants (called "vegetables" by Rutty), animals, birds, fishes, insects, agriculture, minerals and mineral waters. Also included are recommendations for improvements to the Dublin Bills of Mortality and a monthly register of the weather from 1716 to 1724. Rutty also advocated the cleaning of the streets of the city as a precaution against disease and identified the excessive consumption of alcohol as a cause of death.

Rutty died just three years after the publication of this book, aged 77, and was interred in the Friends Burying Ground which lay where the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland now stands.

Illustration from Rutty's Natural History

* Harrison, R. S. Dr John Rutty (1698-1775) of Dublin: A Quaker Polymath in the Enlightment. Dublin, 2011.

Robert Mills, RCPI Librarian

The College of Physicians and the Anti-Vaccination League.

This week RCPI has been supporting European Immunization week, a European wide programme to promote the core message that immunization of every child is vital to prevent diseases and protect life. Just over one hundred years ago RCPI was involved in another campaign to promote vaccination in Ireland, and one which brought them into conflict with the Anti-vaccination League.

On 4 February 1910 RCPI published a statement 'in reference to the opposition to the vaccination of infants which has been reported to them to have arisen in the Enniscorthy Union'. The statement expresses

'grave concern [over] the introduction into Ireland of the crusade against vaccination, and the spread in certain districts of this country of the pernicious doctrines taught by the opponents of that beneficent practice'.

The pamphlet goes on to state the history and development of vaccination, and give a range of statistics to support the need for vaccination. The returns of the Registrar-General for Ireland in 1908 show that there was not a single death in the country from smallpox that year, and that the number of deaths have been falling since 1868 when compulsory vaccination was introduced. This is in comparison to 96,281 deaths from smallpox in the twenty years from 1831 to 1851, an average of 4,814 deaths per annum. As well as addressing the success of compulsory vaccination, the pamphlet also touches on the purity of the vaccine lymph used for the public vaccinations in Ireland, and attests to its quality and safety.

'With all the evidence before them, and having regard to the strict precautions which are taken at the present day to secure that only the purest vaccine lymph shall be used, the President and Fellows would urge the people of Ireland to cling to their faith in a preventative measure which has rid their native land from one of the most terrible plagues which has ever afflicted the human race'.

RCPI may have felt they had made a strong case in favour of vaccination, but the Anti-Vaccination League had other ideas, and were to engage the College and the Dublin Sanitary Association in a lengthy debate on the subject. The Anti-Vaccination League had been founded in 1896 to campaign, as the name suggests, against compulsory vaccination. By 1910 the President of the League was a General Arthur Phelps (1837-1920), an ex-Indian officer who since his retirement had developed an interest in homeopathy and anti-vaccination. The April and June 1910 edition of The Vaccination Inquirer and Health Review, the league's publication, both contain lengthy pieces on 'the anti-vaccination movement in Ireland', including a correspondence between Phelps and T P C Kirkpatrick, who was both Registrar of the College and President of the Dublin Sanitary Association.

Kirkpatrick's archive which contains a file of material on this subject, includes three personal letters from Phelps, sending Kirkpatrick anti-vaccination publications, asserting the accuracy of the facts they contain, and finally declining an invitation to hear Dr Kirkpatrick present his paper on 'The history of the prevention of smallpox'.

The question of the purity of the calf-lymph used in vaccinations, and the attributing of deaths directly to 'cowpox and other effects of vaccination' was a key issue for anti-vaccination campaigners. The Irish Anti-Vaccination League, founded in 1905, produced this postcard in 1912, with a graphic example of the 'dangers' of vaccination. The accompanying text states that 1,338 deaths have resulted from vaccinations between 1875 and 1909, and in the last year two cases of 'that awful disease of erythema circinatum' have resulted.

 

Where have all the books come from?

Since the beginning of this year I have become more involved in the cataloguing of Dun's library, and one of the things that I have found fascinating in working with the collection is where all the books in the library come from?

Obviously many of the books in the library have been purchased by the College during the last 300 years, but a large number are also the result of donations by individuals. While some of the larger donations, such as those made by Dr Kirkpatrick or Fleetwood Churchill, are well know, the histories of many of the smaller donations are not. However, the history of the book as an object and its previous owners can provide insight into patterns of learning and knowledge sharing in the past, as well as relationships between doctors.

One example of such a work is the second edition of The Anatomy of Humane Bodies by William Cowper, published in Leiden in 1737, and donated to Dun's Library in 1950 by Henry Jocelyn Eustace. So, where had the book been in the intervening 200 years?

Two inscriptions on the first blank page of the volume give some information;

'Ex Libris Richardi Kirwan, MD' and 'James Pim to John Eustace MD'

Given their positions on the page it seems likely that Richard Kirwan was the first recorded owner of this book, although I've not been able to identify who he was. However John Eustace MD is identifiable.

John Eustace

John Eustace was born in 1791 the son of Benjamin Eustace and Mary Fawcett, a Quaker family in Cork. John was the first of his family to study medicine, qualifying in 1815. Ten years later in 1825, John Eustace was one of the founders of the Highfield and Hampstead Private Mental Hospital in Glasnevin. Influenced by his Quaker upbringing, and inspired by the Tuke's family Retreat in York, Eustace's new hospital used the practice of moral treatment, where the patients were treated in comfort and as part of the family.

It was this John Eustace (1791-1867) who received the volume of Cowper's anatomy from James Pim. The identification of Pim is not entirely clear, in a note which accompanied the donation Pim is identified as Eustace's father-in-law. However, Eustace's father-in-law was a Mark Goodbody. Eustace's mother-in-law was however an Elizabeth Pim, and it seems likely that James Pim was a relation of hers, and that the exact relationship has confused as the book passed through the generations. Like the Eustaces, the Goodbodys and the Pims were prominent Quaker families in Ireland in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Henry Jocelyn Eustace

In founding the Highfield Hospital John Eustace also founded a family business; John Eustace's two sons succeeded their father as managers of the hospital, as did members of the next three generations of the Eustace family. This volume of Cowper's Anatomy also seems to have passed through the hands of the various medical members of the Eustace family until 1950, when Henry Jocelyn Eustace donated it to the library here. Henry Jocelyn (1908-1996) was the first John Eustace's great-grandson, and was from a line of medics with the exception of his father who managed the family farm and estate. Although never a partner in the family business, Henry Jocelyn did assist at the hospital. He was also a lecturer in Trinity College, Dublin, and Consultant Psychiatrist to several Dublin Hospitals.

Donations like the one by Henry Jocelyn Eustace have been instrumental in the development of not only the library, but also the archive and heritage items collection, held by RCPI. The Heritage Centre has recently launched a Collection Development Policy, which outlines our collecting aims and criteria, and we are willing to discuss any potential donations.

William Francis Norman O’Loughlin – Irish Surgeon on the Titanic

As the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches, it seems a good time to look at the life of the Irish doctor William Francis Norman O'Loughlin, who was ship's surgeon on the Titanic and went down with the ship.

Dr O'Loughlin

William O'Loughlin was born in 1849. Left an orphan on the death of his parents O'Loughlin was brought up by his maternal uncle Benjamin Matthews, in Tralee. There seems to be some confusion about where Dr O'Loughlin received his medical education, with some reporting he received his education at Trinity College Dublin, and other that he was educated at the Cecelia Street Medical School, which was part of the Catholic University and eventually formed part of University College Dublin. What is certain is that in 1870 O'Loughlin received the Licentiateship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and in the following year he received his Licentiateship of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the two Licentiateships being the equivalent of a medical degree and allowing him to practice as a doctor.

SS Britannic

Following his qualification Dr O'Loughlin decided on a career at sea, and he served with the White Star Line for many years. Dr O'Loughlin's 40 years at sea where not without incident. In 1887 he was serving on the SS Britannic when she collided with the SS Celtic in heavy fog off the cost of New Jersey. The Britannic was the more seriously damaged by the collision and the passengers, fearing she would sink, rushed to the lifeboats. The Captain was able to re-establish order on his ship, and the Britannic was safely escorted into New York harbour.

RMS Titanic, April 1912

In April 1912 when Dr O'Loughlin boarded the Titanic in Belfast he was Senior Surgeon of the White Star Line and aged 62 years. Reports of the survivors state that after the ship had hit the iceberg Dr O'Loughlin calmly directed passengers towards the life boats and did his best to calm the panic. An obituary in American Medicine stated that;

'Dr O'Loughlin knew no fear, for he paid no attention to his own danger but went from one group to another, soothing the frightened, encouraging the week and striving in every way to prevent panic and hysteria. As the last life-boat left the vessel, although he must have known that the end was near, he was seen standing in a companionway with the same smile on his face that had endeared him to countless travellers who knew and loved him.'

Dr O'Loughlin's body was never identified amongst those which were recovered from the disaster. Several of the newspaper reports at the time commented on Dr O'Loughlin's long stated wish to be buried at sea.

In 1914 the New York Times established a fund to promote a memorial to Dr O'Loughlin. The money collected went to St. Vincent's Hospital, New York, an institution Dr O'Loughlin had supported during his life, to equip a new emergency ward.

Printed memoiral to O'Loughlin in American Medicine 1912

 

Sources;

• O'Loughlin, William Francis Norman File, Kirkpatrick Index, RCPI Archive
• Dr William Francis Norman O'Loughlin on Encyclopaedia Titanic, http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/william-francis-norman-oloughlin.html