Happy Christmas

This will be the last post of the year as the Heritage Centre is getting ready to shut up for the Christmas Holidays. It's been a pleasure talking to you all this year, and I'll be back in the New Year. Until then Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Item of the Month – December 2010

December's item of the month is this rather unprepossessing small collection of burnt and dirty papers, but they are important items for two reasons.

First of, what do we have? An envelope addressed to a Mrs R T Hearn containing a cheque for twenty five guineas, the refund of the fee required by the College for all candidates sitting the membership exam. Mrs R J Hearn was Mary Ellice Thorn Hearn, the first female Fellow of the College. Born Mary Cummins in Cork in 1891, she was studying medicine at University College Cork when she met the Rev Robert Thomas Hearn. Mary discontinued her studies to marry HearnHearn worked at the Victoria Hospital Cork and the Lapp's Charity, Cork. Robert Thomas Hearn went on to become Church of Ireland archdeacon and later bishop of Cork, he died in 1952 and Mary died in 1969.

Secondly, what has happened to the letter? As you can see the items have suffered considerable damage, and not as a result of neglect in the archive. The envelope is stamped 'Salved from GPO Dublin', seeming to indicate that the damage was done while the item was in the postal system. In November 1922 Ireland was in the middle of Civil war and it seems this letter was a casualty of the conflict. Despite being burnt round the edges, the post office still managed to deliver the item, although it is not clear if it reached Hearn or was returned to the College. The post mark of the new Irish postal service is also rather nice, exhorting its citizens to 'learn Irish'.

Winter Weather and Colles Fracture

During the last two weeks much of Ireland has been gripped by freezing temperatures and heavy snow, with records for the coldest temperature for the time of year being broken night after night. The cold weather has been putting pressure on the health service with blood donations falling and numbers presenting at A&E with weather related fractures reaching 'crisis point'[1]

 

One of the most common injuries caused by the bad weather have been Colles' fracture, named after the Irish Surgeon Abraham Colles who first described the classic deformity, before the advent of x-rays. Colles was born into a wealthy Irish family in Kilkenny in 1773. He studied at Trinity College and received a diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, before gaining his MD from Edinburgh in 1797. Returning to Dublin he was appointed to the staff of Dr. Steevens' Hospital where he remained for over 40 years. A skilled surgeon and anatomist he was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland at the age of only 28. Two years later he was appointed the College's Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Surgery.

In 1814 Colles published a paper entitled On the Fracture of the Carpal Extremity of the Radius, the fracture which now carries his name. Colles fracture is a distal fracture of the radius in the forearm, with displacement of the wrist. Colles identified the fracture from the distinctive deformity on the back of the wrist, although the injury to the bone can now be clearly seen on x-rays.

 
So why the sudden interest? Well Dr Colles and his fracture might just be responsible for the lack of blog posts in the last couple of weeks. But it's on the mend now, and my one handed typing is getting faster.

Images;
* RCPI, No. 6 Kildare Street in the snow
* Plaster bust of Abraham Colles, after J R Kirker, RCPI 52
* Drawing showing Colles fracture and characterstic deformity
* X-ray of Colles Fracture.

[1] http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1205/weather.html