Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/409

 year to Ireland he became a licentiate of the College of Physicians there, and was immediately elected physician to the Meath hospital. He published in 1825 ‘An Introduction to the Use of the Stethoscope,’ one of the earliest treatises on the subject in English. It is dedicated to [q. v.], and shows that the author had done much solid pathological and clinical work. Dr. [q. v.] was his colleague at Meath Hospital, and they reformed the clinical teaching of Dublin. Stokes at once became famous as a teacher of medicine, and in the great epidemic of typhus in Dublin in 1826 his exertions in the treatment of the poor were conspicuous. He was himself attacked by the fever in 1827. In April 1828 he married. He first lived at 16 Harcourt Street, Dublin, and in 1828 published two lectures on the application of the stethoscope to the diagnosis of thoracic disease. His practice increased, and in 1830 he moved to a larger house in York Street, Dublin. Every Saturday he had an open evening, and the excellent society of his house became a powerful influence in Dublin. He encouraged the labours of [q. v.], and stimulated by kindly sympathy the studies of younger men in all branches of learning. Asiatic cholera visited Dublin in 1832, and he reported the first case. He gave clinical lectures at the Meath hospital, and contributed lectures to the ‘London Medical and Surgical Journal,’ as well as a paper on the curability of phthisis. In 1832 he published ‘Clinical Observations on the Use of Opium,’ and in 1833 and 1834 papers in the ‘London Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.’ He became in 1834 editor of the ‘Dublin Journal of Medical Science,’ and in 1835 began a work entitled ‘A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest,’ which was published in 1837. It is based on his clinical discourses, and is remarkable for the lucid and definite character of its summaries on each of the diseases described. It sets forth and discusses all the views of Laennec and his school, but is most valuable where it is most original, and whatever additions may be made to the information contained in it will always be useful as a model of medical exposition. In 1838 he founded the Pathological Society of Dublin, and in 1839 the university of Dublin conferred upon him the degree of M.D. His foreign travels, which he repeated in 1840, enabled him to add to his already extensive knowledge of art, and in Ireland [q. v.] and (Sir) Frederick Burton were his favourite artists and dearest friends. Miss Helen Faucit (afterwards Lady Martin) visited Ireland, and they became friends. He discharged the duties of regius professor of medicine in the Dublin University from 1843, and on his father's death in 1845 his appointment was confirmed. In that year he visited Icolmkill and the Hebrides, and in 1849 he enjoyed a period of repose and antiquarian study in South Wales. He published in 1854 ‘Diseases of the Heart and Aorta,’ a profound work of the same kind of merit as his treatises on diseases of the chest, and in 1863 he edited ‘Studies in Physiology and Medicine’ by Robert James Graves. He was made physician in ordinary to the queen in Ireland in 1861, and elected F.R.S. in the same year. His ‘lectures on fever,’ which are chiefly valuable from the light they throw on Irish epidemics, were edited by Dr. J. W. Moore in 1874.

Meanwhile in 1866–7 he wrote the ‘Life and Labours in Art and Archæology of George Petrie.’ This was published in 1868. Throughout life he took deep interest in Irish antiquities, visited the isles of Arran twice and many other remote parts of Ireland with his daughter Margaret and the Earl of Dunraven [see, third ]. He was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 1874.

Stokes owned a house called Carrig Breac on the most remote part of the promontory of Howth, and he retired thither when he gave up practice. In 1876 he was awarded the Prussian order Pour le Mérite in recognition of his medical writings. He had a paralytic stroke in November 1877, and died on 10 Jan. 1878. He was buried at St. Finlan's, Howth.

Besides the works mentioned, he published numerous medical essays and several addresses on medical education, in which he insists on the advantage of a wide general education for students of medicine. His services to his country in encouraging the study of her architecture, artistic work, and music, were very great, and every young man found in him a generous friend. He was long the undoubted head of his profession in Ireland, and Sir [q. v.], a most capable authority, expressed in 1868 the opinion that Stokes was the greatest physician of that time in Europe. Several of his works were translated into French, German, and Italian.

His portrait, by Sir Frederick Burton, was in the possession of Mr. Whitley Stokes, and has been engraved; and his statue, by [q. v.], is in the hall of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians of