A Century of Service - Eoin O'Brien

The Voluntary Hospital Movement and the Dublin School
Corrigan would not have disagreed with Stokes’s views but his outlook was more
pragmatic. He saw the priorities of the nation more clearly than Stokes, and realised
that the development of the individual was a luxury which Ireland could not yet afford:
I would not decry the terse poetry of Horace and the rounded periods of Homer;
but neither will teach a man to measure his field or to drain it; neither the one nor
the other will teach him chemistry, or the application of science to manufactures;
neither the one nor the other will teach him natural history; and I would, if I could,
divert the mind of the country into those branches which have a practical bearing
on every hour of our existence and the prosperity of our country … The mind of
the country – and the sooner we learn it the better – is as uncultivated as the barren
soil of our bogs … The education of the middle classes – and the sooner it is known
the better – is on the lowest par in Europe, and when a few men come forward and
attempt to give us information it is thrown on soil which is not productive, and
men who do not understand it undervalue it. 88
William Wilde
To many it may come as a surprise to find William Wilde included as a member of
the “Dublin school.” But then, unfortunately this great Victorian is often remembered
only as the father of Oscar, or he is ridiculed and lampooned for his eccentricities
and illicit amours. Too often it is forgotten that he was an innovative doctor, an
accomplished archaeologist and author of some very fine books on Ireland. Moreover,
he and his wife Speranza were Victorian Dublin’s most colourful couple. However,
let us first put his medical achievements into perspective. None is better qualified to
do so than his biographer, T.G. Wilson, an ear, nose and throat surgeon (or as he
would now be known, an otorhinolaryngologist) of repute. 89 He ranked Wilde as “one
of the two greatest English-speaking aurists of his time,” the other referred to being
Toynbee. He considered Wilde to be “almost as brilliant an oculist as he was an aurist.”
The science of otology (disease of the ear) when Wilde entered the speciality was in
the hands of quacks, and as Wilde developed new techniques, so did he invent suitable
instruments including “Wilde’s snare.” 90
William Wilde, the youngest of five children was born in 1815 in the village of
Kilkievin in the west of Ireland. His father was a doctor and the son decided to follow
in his footsteps. In 1832 “a dark ferrety looking young man below the average size,
with retreating chin and a bright roving eye, boarded the coach for Dublin.” 91 He
was apprenticed to Abraham Colles and spent four years at Dr Steevens’ hospital,
and then went to the Rotunda. After his final exam he collapsed, and Dr Graves was
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