By SIR BERTRAM C.A. WINDLE, Sc.D., M.D.,
_President, University College, Cork_.
We may divide our survey of the debt owed to Ireland by science into
three periods: the earliest, the intermediate, and the latest.
In the earliest period the names which come before us are chiefly
those of compilers such as Augustin, a monk and an Irishman who wrote
at Carthage, in Africa, in the seventh century, a Latin treatise on
_The Wonderful Things of the Sacred Scripture_, still extant, in
which, in connection with Joshua's miracle, a very full account of
the astronomical knowledge of the period, Ptolemaic, but in many ways
remarkably accurate, is given. There are, however, three
distinguished names. Virgil the Geometer, _i.e._, Fergil (O'Farrell),
was Abbot of Aghaboe, went to the continent in 741, and was
afterwards Bishop of Salzburg. He died in 785. He is remembered by
his controversies with St. Boniface, one of which is concerned with
the question of the Antipodes. Virgil is supposed to have been the
first to teach that the earth is spherical. So celebrated was he that
it has been thought that a part of the favor in which the author of
the _Aeneid_ was held by medieval churchmen was due to a confusion
between his name and that of the geometer, sometimes spoken of as St.
Virgil.
Dicuil, also an Irish monk, was the author of a remarkable work on
geography, _De Mensura Provinciarum Orbis Terrae_, which was written
in 825, and contains interesting references to Iceland and especially
to the navigable canal which once connected the Nile with the Red
Sea. He wrote between 814 and 816 a work on astronomy which has never
been published. It is probable, but not certain, that he belonged to
Clonmacnois.
Dungal, like the two others named above, was an astronomer. He
probably belonged to Bangor, and left his native land early in the
ninth century. In 811 he wrote a remarkable work, _Dungali Reclusi
Epistola de duplici solis eclipsi anno 810 ad Carolum Magnum_. This
letter, which is still extant, was written at the request of
Charlemagne, who considered its author to be the most learned
astronomer in existence and most likely to clear up the problem
submitted to him.
Before passing to the next period, a word should be said as to the
medieval physicians, often if not usually belonging to families of
medical men, such as the Leahys and O'Hickeys, and attached
hereditarily to the greater clans. These men were chiefly compilers,
but such works of theirs as we have throw light upon the state of
medical knowledge in their day. Thus there is extant a treatise on
_Materia Medica_ (1459); written by Cormac MacDuinntsleibhe
(Dunleavy), hereditary physician to the clan of O'Donnell in Ulster.
A more interesting work is the _Cursus Medicus_, consisting of six
books on Physiology, three on Pathology, and four on Semeiotica,
written in the reign of Charles I. of England by Nial O'Glacan, born
in Donegal, and at one time physician to the king of France.
O'Glacan's name introduces us to the middle period, if indeed it does
not belong there. _Inter arma silent leges_, and it may be added,
scientific work. The troublous state of Ireland for many long years
fully explains the absence of men of science in any abundance until
the end of the eighteenth century. Still there are three names which
can never be forgotten, belonging to the period in question. Sir Hans
Sloane was born at Killileagh, in Ulster, in 1660. He studied
medicine abroad, went to London where he settled, and was made a
Fellow of the Royal Society. He published a work on the West Indies,
but his claim to undying memory is the fact that it was the bequest
of his most valuable and extensive collections to the nation which
was the beginning and foundation of the British Museum, perhaps the
most celebrated institution of its kind in the world. Sloane's
collection, it should be added, contained an immense number of
valuable books and manuscripts, as well as of objects more usually
associated with the idea of a museum. He died in 1753.
The Hon. Robert Boyle was born at Lismore, in the county Waterford,
in 1627, being the fourteenth child of the first Earl of Cork. On his
tombstone he is described as "The Father of Chemistry and the Uncle
of the Earl of Cork", and, indeed, in his _Skyptical Chimist_ (1661),
he assailed, and for the time overthrew, the idea of the alchemists
that there was a _materia prima_, asserting as he did that theory of
chemical "elements" which held good until the discoveries in
connection with radium led to a modification in chemical teaching.
This may be said of Boyle, that his writings profoundly modified
scientific opinion, and his name will always stand in the forefront
amongst those of chemists. He made important improvements in the
air-pump, was one of the earliest Fellows of the Royal Society, and
founded the "Boyle Lectures." He died in 1691.
Sir Thomas Molyneux was born in Dublin, in 1661, of a family which
had settled in Ireland about 1560-70. He practised as a physician in
his native city, was the first person to describe the Irish Elk and
to demonstrate the fact that the Giant's Causeway was a natural and
not, as had been previously supposed, an artificial production. He
was the author of many other scientific observations. He died in
1733.
We may now turn to more recent times, and it will be convenient to
divide our subjects according to the branch of science in which they
were distinguished, and to commence with