Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/340

Rh Sussex County Hospital, and went thence to Guy's Hospital, where he obtained several prizes. He became a member of the College of Surgeons in 1872, and soon after became resident medical officer at the London Fever Hospital. In 1875 he was elected medical tutor at St. Mary's Hospital, and shortly after medical registrar at Guy's Hospital. While discharging the very laborious duties of this office he entered at Caius College, Cambridge, and used to go to Cambridge every evening by the last train in order to perform the pernoctation essential for keeping a term, returning to London by an early morning train. He had taken the degree of M.D. at Brussels, and in 1881 he graduated M.B. at Cambridge, taking no other degree, and in the same year he was elected assistant physician to Guy's Hospital. In 1880 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians of London. He was the chief mover in the establishment of a system of obtaining information on diseases by means of replies to printed papers of questions forwarded to practitioners of medicine throughout the country, and worked most laboriously at this ‘collective investigation.’ He made many contributions to the ‘Transactions of the Pathological Society’ (vols. xxvi. xxviii. xxxii. xxxiv. xxxv. xxxvi. xxxvii. xxxviii.), of which the most important is one on the sphygmographic evidence of arterio-capillary fibrosis; and he wrote a long series of papers on the results of the use of the sphygmograph in the investigation of disease in the ‘British Medical Journal.’ To the ‘Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society’ he contributed a valuable paper on the early stages of scarlatinal nephritis, and also published many observations in the Guy's Hospital ‘Reports.’ He died of enteric fever on 22 Nov. 1884, at his house in Manchester Square, London. He had been married twice. He was a tall, muscular man, of a dark complexion, impulsive in manner, and possessed of extraordinary powers of work.

 MAHON, Viscount (1805–1875), historian. [See, fifth .]

MAHON, CHARLES JAMES PATRICK, better known as (1800–1891), Irish politician, was born at Ennis, co. Clare, on 17 March 1800. His father, Patrick Mahon, had taken part in the rebellious movements of 1798. His mother was the daughter of James O'Gorman of Ennis. Educated at a small clerical school in Dublin, and afterwards at Trinity College, where he matriculated in 1819 and graduated M.A. in 1826, The O'Gorman Mahon had barely attained his majority when in 1821, upon his father's death, he became a J.P. for co. Clare. A boldness of demeanour, rare in those days among Roman catholics, combined with a singularly handsome face and imposing stature to attract attention to him as a young man. Before 1826 he had become acquainted with O'Connell's famous lieutenant, Tom Steele, who introduced him to the Catholic Association, of which he soon became a member. He was one of the first to impress upon O'Connell the desirability of wresting Clare from William Vesey Fitzgerald [q.v.] on the latter's accepting office as president of the board of trade in the Duke of Wellington's administration in 1828, and, as soon as O'Connell had decided on the struggle, Mahon spared no pains to secure his victory. Not content with ordinary electioneering tactics, he exploited to the full the eccentric resources of his own picturesque personality. On the opening of the polling in the court-house, he suspended himself from a gallery over the heads of the gaping crowd below, attired in an extravagant national costume, and with a medal of the ‘Order of the Liberators’ on his breast. In a whimsical speech he declined to obey the high sheriff's direction that he should remove the badge. O'Connell was returned triumphantly at the head of the poll, 5 July 1828. On 17 Aug. 1830 he was himself elected M.P. for Clare along with Major William Nugent m'Namara, but was unseated on petition on a charge of bribery. Next year this place was filled by Maurice O'Connell. In the following general election in May 1831 The O'Gorman once more appeared as candidate in opposition to Major m'Namara, in whose interest O'Connell threw his influence. The O'Gorman was defeated, and the contest, which was conducted with some bitterness, resulted in a quarrel, never healed, between him and O'Connell. He now took up his residence at Mahonburgh, became a D.L. for his county, and a captain in the West Clare militia. In 1834 he was called to the Dublin bar, but did not practise, and in 1835 he set out on foreign travel. Paris was his first destination, and there he made the acquaintance of Talleyrand, and became a favourite at the court of Louis-Philippe. From Paris he proceeded to one European capital after another; and he travelled in Africa and the East, and was for a short time in South America before he returned to Ireland in 1846. He represented Ennis in parliament from 1847 until 1852, when on again offering himself as candidate he was defeated by Lord Fitzgerald.