James Macartney; A Memoir (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1900 Excerpt: ... RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DUBLIN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE HE history of the Irish people has ever-. been a history of strife. The successive waves of immigration which collectively contributed to form the population of Ireland have never blended into a homogeneous nationality to the same degree as the equally dissimilar constituents of the population in the neighbouring island have done; and although the several component races have long since become indistinguishable, yet the relics of the spirit of tribal independence and hostility can be recognised not only in the legends of the genealogists and chroniclers, but also among the living people at the present day. In a country the annals of which are so largely made up of stories of internal feuds, from the Tain-bo-Cuailgne down to the report of the most recent agrarian emeute, the growth of a native system of military surgery must have been an early necessity; and indeed, even as far back as the period of the mythical Tuatha de Danaan chieftains we read of the marvellous skill of those who practised the art of healing. When in the battle of Magh-tuireadh (Moytura), B.C. 674, Nial, the King of the Tuatha de Danaan, lost his hand, we are told by O'Clery that the stump of the injured arm was dressed, and immediately healed by the remedies of Diancccht.1 The lost member was replaced by a silver hand, made by Credne, the smith, and this was so cunningly devised that Miach, the skilful son of Diancecht, infused into it feeling and motion, the earliest case of the well-known phenomenon of referred sensation attributed to lost parts after amputation. Medicine in ancient Ireland was not a science of the schools. Cormac mac Art, in the third century, is said to have founded a college at Tara, but we have no record of a facu...