Walsh, James J.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 8 | Number 1 Article 7January 1940The Irish School of Medicine: Graves, Stokes andCorriganJames J. WalshFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationWalsh, James J. (1940) "The Irish School of Medicine: Graves, Stokes and Corrigan," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 8 : No. 1 , Article 7.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol8/iss1/7THE LINA C RE QUARTERLY THE IRISH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: GRAVES, STOKES AND CORRIGAN By JAMES J . WALSH, M.D., PH.D. 'iVhen, just thirty-five years ago, I wrote my first book on the history of medicine, it consisted of a series of biographies and one of the most important chapters of it was on the Irish school of medi-cine. The three men whose names led the distinguished roll of Irish physicians were Robert Graves, a fter whom Graves disease is named in the English-speaking countries though the affection is also called exophthalmic goitl'e or B asedow's disease, by the Ger-mans ; Corrigan, after whom Cor-rigan's disease, aortic regurgita-tion, is named; and Stokes, whose name is preserved for future gen-erations in medicine in the term Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Stokes and Graves were not Catholics, but they afford a surpassing example of the contradiction of that old saw, "'iVhere there are three physi-cians there are two atheists ." All three of these men of the Irish school of medicine were thoroughly religious, and we have abundant evidence that Stokes and Graves were what would be called ex-tremely pious men. The lives of these men demonstrate that sci-ence and faith and even piety may go hand in hand and are not at all necessarily in opposition to each other. An appreciation of Graves's re-ligious devotion may be had from a paragraph his biographer wrote about him in this regard: "On the day before his death he desired to partake of Holy Com-munion with his family .... Feel-ing himself sinking, he asked that a prayer should be said and a peti-tion offered up, suitable to his condition. 'iVhen the formal prayers were said he seemed to long for something more and when question ed replied: 'I want some prayers that I know, some of the prayers of my youth, some of my father' s prayers.' The litany was commenced and he immediately took up the well known words, and when the speaker's voice faltered, touched by the conditions that he saw around him, Graves continued the litany alone and distinctly to the end of the strain: 'Whom Thou hast r edeemed with Thy most precious Blood.' " Most people who read this would be prone to think that prayers so formulated could come only from a Catholic, but Graves was the son of a professor in an Anglican seminary and thor-oughly familiar with the prayers of the Church that had come down from the older time. Even more distinguished than Graves was his colleague and close friend, William Stokes. Stokes 's work on diseases of the chest in middle life and his treatise later in life on "Diseases of the Heart and Aorta" stamp him as [ 20 1 THE LINACRE QUARTERLY one of the great physicians of modern time. His name is assured of immortality in the history of medicine because, linked with that of the well-known Scotch physician who came to Dublin late in the sec-ond decade of the nineteenth cen-tury, it is associated in the term most commonly used for a form of breathing in se rious disease hav-ing special diagnostic and prog-nosti c significance. Cheyne-Stokes respiration is a very valuable symptom complex. Even more in-teresting, however, than Stokes the physician is Stokes the man and a ll that he stood for in his generation in Dublin during a long life. Stokes spent himself in labor for the poor and his deep interest in their welfa re led him to sacri-fice much time in order to organ· ize medica l charity for his unfor-tuna te countrymen during the sad years of that awful fifth decade of the nineteenth century when Ireland lost more than one in eight of the population as the r es ult of the famine, and the diseases that followed. Decimation, the taking of eYery tenth man, represented an awful punishment in military his-tory, but between cholera and typhus Ireland during the mid-century lost many more than this. Stokes was the first to recog-nize the disease and sounded the note of warning which saved many lives by calling attention to its perils. Cholera and typhus were , the great dange1·s of the medical men of that time. Here in this country as the result of these m-tensely contagious diseases doc-tors lived far below the average length of life of the people gener-ally. I have been shown records which point out that here in New York three generations of physi-cians in a family were taken off by these diseases between the 'ages of thirty and thirty-five. This proved to be true in Ireland but in spite of the risk, Stokes devoted himself to the care of his patients and wrote an account of his ex-periences which is in itself a valu-able medical document showing the accurate powers of observa-tion he possessed. It is curiously interesting to find that a favorite subject of dis-cussion in the Irish medical soci-eties nearly a century ago was a topic which has come to be rather often the subject of discussion in medical society meetings. Dr. Stokes bewailed the fact that medi-cine did not have its proper place in the estimation of the people and was not able to assert its dignity as a profess ion in its proper sphere. He discussed also the remedies for this state of affairs and as he was a man of very large experience and eminently broad views as well as sane conservative judgment his opinions are worth while pondering even in the mid-dle of the twentieth century for the practical problems of profes-sional life which he puts forth are still with us. For this reason it seems worth while to give a rather lengthy quotation that would ade-quately represent his conclusions m the matter. Stokes said: [ 21 ] THE LINA C RE QUARTERLY "Is it by public agitation and remonstrances addressed to deaf or unwilling ears that these medi-cal abuses are to be corrected? I s it by the demand for class legis-lation? Or is it by the efforts of one and all to place medicine in the hierarchy of the sciences, in the vanguard of hum an progress ; eliminating every influence th at can lower it, every day more and more developing the professional principle, while we foster all things tha t rela te to its moral, lit-er a ry and scientific character? When this becomes our rule of a c-tion, then begins the real r eform of those things at which we fret and chafe. Then will medicine have due weight in the councils of the country. There is no royal road to this consummation." Dr. Stokes continued: "On the one hand, the liberal education of the public must advance and the introduction of the p hys ical sci-·enccs into the a rts courses of the univer sities must give the death blow to empiricism ; and, on the other, education of ourselves must extend its found ations, and we should trust far less to the special than to the general training of the mind. "When medicine is in a position to command respect be sure that its r eward will be proportionally increased, its status elevated. In the history of the human r ace, three objects of man's solicitude may be indicated: first, his future state ; next, his worldly interest s ; and lastly, his health . And so the professions which deal with these considerations have been rel a -tively placed: first, tha t of divin-ity ; next, that of law or govern-ment; and, as man loves gold more than life, the las t is medicine. But, with the progress of 'societ y, a juster balance will obta in, condi-tionally that we work in the r ight direction and make ourselves worthy to t ake a sha re in its gov-ernment, not by coercive curricula of education ; not by ove rloaded examinations in specia l knowledge which are, in compa rison to a la rge mental ~raining, almost valueless, but by seeing to the moral and religious cultivat ion and the general intellectua l ad-vancement of the student." If one turns to the address on medica l education by President Hutchins of Chicago U niversity published in the Journal of the A merican M edicrtl Association fo r April 29, 1939, it i surprising to find how many ideas the two men have in common. Wha t Sir John Moore, himself one of the most distinguished of the physicians of the next genera-tion in Dublin, said of Stokes at the bedside sums up ver y beauti-full y his medical career : "Those who have seen Dr. Stokes a t the bedside of the sick know how gentle, how r efined, how kindly was his bearing toward the pa tient. Amid a ll his ardor of clinical observation and resea rch, he never for one moment forgot the sufferer before him - no thoughtless words p assed his lips, no rough or unkind action eYer ruffled the calm confidence reposed r 22 1 THE LIN ACRE QUARTERLY in him by those who kn ew his skill and ca re. In many eloquent lec-tures delivered at the Meath Hos-pital, he inculcated those Chris-t ian lessons of charity and t houghtfulness ; and so by precept and example he strove to t each the duties of a true and God-fearing physician." At least as great as his two col-leagues of whom I have just writ-ten was Sir Dominic Corrigan, dis-tinguished for his original obser-vations in heart disease, a special type of pulse being named after him. Quite unlike the other rep-resentatives of the Irish school of ceived his degree of Doctor of Medicine and then r eturned to Dublin to practice. H ere the best that he could secure was the ap-pointment as physician to the Jer-vis Street Hospital. This was a small institution and had but six medical beds, yet it was here that Corrigan succeeded in making a r eputation for himself by his ob-servations in cardiac diseases. Small as was the experience that could be thus secured he succeeded in less than five years in revolu-tionizing the teaching with regard to diseases of the aortic valve in the heart. medicine, Corrigan was the son of Corrigan lived a long and busy a poor shopkeep er who barely life up to the age of nearly eighty made a living for his family. In and received many distinctions in spite of this Co1:rigan secured his the course of his a ctivities. H e higher education at Maynooth, an was thoroughly appreciated by his institution which we now associate colleagues in the medical profes-entirely with ecclesiastical stu- sion . He was elected president of dents but at that time had a de- the Royal Zoological Society of partment for secular students Dublin and also of th e Dublin quite apart from ecclesiastical. Pharmaceutical Society. He was The physician who was in atten- five times elected president of the dance at May nooth for the stu- College of Physici ans in Dublin, dents won Corrigan's admiration, an unprecedented honor. There and proved to be the decisive fac- is a magnificent statue of him tor in the young man's determina · done by the Irish sculptor, Foley, tion to s tudy medicine. which has a ver y prominent pla ce After several years of medical in the home of the Dublin College study in Dublin, which was looked of Physicians. upon as a medical center of dis- Corrigan was eminently sue-tinction, Corrigan went to Edin- cessful as a teacher of medicine burgh ._ The prevailing custom of but he was d eeply interested in the time was not to make medical education in a ll its phases. H e studies in one school only, but to was created a B aronet partly as a absorb the t eaching of sever al reward for his services as Commis-schools and especially of their sioner of Education, a post he held most distinguished teachers . At for some time. He was a member the age of twenty-three he re- of the English P arliament for five [ 23 l TilE LIN ACR E QUARTERLY years and was defeated for r e-election by the liquor interests be-cause he insisted tha t the greatest evi l the Irish people were suffering from was an over-indulgence in arduous spirits. For this r eason he had devoted himself to the en-actment of the Sunday Closing Bill. Those were the days that, as we have said, tried men's souls when epidemics of intensely fatal disease swept through the countries of the world. Corrigan was the first to point out the distinction between typhus and typhoid . When either of these diseases swept through the city and country, these members of the Irish school of medicine de-voted themselves to the care of their patients, though it was an in-tensely perilous procedure. No wonder they were considered to be intensely charitable toward their fellow men when unlike so many others who fled from the danger involved, they stayed with their patients and did all they possibly could for them. No wonder·, too, that some of their student s and assistants felt it their duty to do likewise so as to afford the best care that could be given to people who could not fl y from the danger but had to stay and attend to their business and their folks. Corrigan's self-sacrificing devo-tion during the famine years made him famous. H e came to have one of the largest practices that any physician in Dublin, or for that matte1· in any city in the world, has ever enjoyed, if enjoyment it can be called ! His office was al-way:; crowded with patients who would have taken up a ll his time if allowed to do so. In order to se-cure opportunities for his other work, for his lectures, for his hos-pital visits, and for his pathologi-cal investigation, he had a back entrance made to his home through which he could steal out unrecog-nized, even though there were many patients waiting for him. Late in life after his return from Parliament he took up his practice again but it was only a very little time before the same state of affairs with regard to his practice developed once more. It seemed almost as if every sick Irish man and woman, no matter how far away they lived, wanted to have the opinion of Dr. Corri-gan. H e had also a large consul-tant practice, but he was known to be a very different man from the ordina ry type of medical con-sultant. As one of his younger colleagues said : "He never wore the supreme air of a consultant." H e was always simple and unas-suming in his manner, ready to listen to what had developed in the illness, and above all to what had been found in the case before he was called in . He had none of that superciliousness that was supposed to characterize the high-grade consultant physician in the British I sles hal£ a century ago. The present generation of Catholic physicians can well be proud to be able to claim so fin e an exponent of all they stand for, • as one of their own. [ 24. ] 

The Irish School of Medicine: Graves, Stokes and Corrigan

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The Irish School of Medicine: Graves, Stokes and Corrigan

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