MEDICAL MATTERS:THIS IS A YEAR of some note for my alma mater, writes MUIRIS HOUSTON.
Trinity College’s School of Medicine is celebrating 300 years this year. “Alma mater” comes from the Latin: “nourishing mother” and in its modern meaning denotes the college or university where a person spends their formative years.
As the current head of the medical school, Prof Dermot Kelleher, observed recently, these are the years when so many of a person’s lifelong principles and deep friendships are formed. I still look back with fondness on my time there in what was indeed a nourishing experience.
Trinity College Medical School was formally opened on August 16th, 1711. The first building was on the site now occupied by the Berkeley Library. When Sir Patrick Dun died in 1713, his bequest was used to build Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital as a teaching hospital for both TCD and the College of Physicians. His legacy also supported the setting up of several professorial chairs in the nascent “school of physic”.
The Trinity School of Medicine pioneered medical education in Ireland and was joined in the course of the 19th century by medical schools in the newer Irish universities. The 1800s are considered the golden age of Irish medicine. Dublin’s teaching hospitals were the focus for the development of new concepts in medicine and frequently the places where new diseases were described. Among these are Grave’s Disease, a classic description of an overactive thyroid by Robert Graves; Colles fracture of the wrist, after Abraham Colles; and Stokes Adams attacks (William Stokes), describing episodes of fainting due to a sudden reduction in cardiac output.
Graves was appointed professor of pathology and physiology at Trinity in 1827 and went on to gain international renown as a clinical teacher. In 1840, Stokes became professor of physic. He is now recognised as the father of cardiology.
For those with an interest in the history of medicine, a unique exhibition opened at the university last week. Running until October in the Long Room at Trinity's Old Library The Best Doctors in the World are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Dr Merrymancelebrates 300 years of medicine at TCD.
Among the exhibits are a first edition of Andreas Vesalius' revolutionary work on the human body, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, published in 1543; the first medical book published in Dublin in 1619; the envelope in which Dorothy Price imported the first BCG vaccine for TB in Ireland; and the death mask of Jonathan Swift.
Vesalius, who along with Copernicus is credited with kick-starting the scientific revolution, advocated a move from Galen’s “bookish” approach to anatomy to one based firmly on dissection of the human body. His approach influenced education, putting a new emphasis on lecturing while dissecting.
Trinity College owns a number of surviving Irish language medical manuscripts; the exhibition includes a 16th-century example with a unique diagram of the eye.
And medical graduates can reacquaint themselves with the skeleton of Cornelius Magrath, a renowned Irish giant, which still resides in the anatomy department. He suffered from gigantism due to an excess of growth hormone.
Among the events scheduled for later this year are a photographic exhibition of Irish GPs seeing patients in a variety of environments and, in June, a symposium to celebrate the life of Denis Burkitt.
A 1936 graduate, Burkitt is one of the few doctors to be acclaimed for two medical discoveries. The first, uncovering the causes of a cancer – now known as Burkitt’s lymphoma – was followed by his breakthrough in confirming the link between many western diseases and a lack of dietary fibre.
If any graduate symbolises the public-service ethos at the heart of Trinity’s medical school, it is Burkitt. “Attitudes are more important than abilities, motives are more important than methods, character is more important than cleverness,” were his reflections after a life spent as a medical missionary in Africa.