John MacDonnell (surgeon) facts for kids

John MacDonnell (born 11 February 1796 – died 20 January 1892) was an important Irish surgeon. He was a pioneer in using surgical anaesthesia in Ireland. This means he was one of the first doctors to use medicine to make patients feel no pain during operations.

Early Life and Education

John MacDonnell was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 11 February 1796. His father, James MacDonnell, was a well-known doctor and a leader in the community. John had an older brother named Alexander and a sister.

John went to the Belfast Academy for his early schooling. Later, he studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned his degree in 1818. From 1813, he trained with Richard Carmichael, a famous surgeon. Carmichael became a mentor and friend to John.

John also studied at Richmond Hospital. In 1821, he became a licensed surgeon. To learn even more, he traveled to London, Edinburgh, and Paris to study medicine. He earned his medical degree from Edinburgh in 1825.

Family Life

In 1826, John MacDonnell married Charity Dobbs. They had a large family with 6 sons and 5 daughters. Some of their children who also became notable were Robert, Alexander, and Barbara.

John MacDonnell lived a long life. He passed away at his home in Dublin on 20 January 1892. He is buried with his family in a graveyard in County Meath.

A Career in Medicine

In 1827, John MacDonnell started his own medical practice in Dublin. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and the Royal Irish Academy in the same year.

He also taught at the Richmond Hospital School, which later became known as the Carmichael School of Medicine. He taught anatomy, which is the study of the body's structure, and physiology, which is the study of how the body works. He eventually became an owner of the school.

In 1835, he was offered a job as a professor of surgery at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. However, he decided not to take that role. Instead, in 1836, he became a surgeon at the Richmond Hospital.

Pioneering Painless Surgery

John MacDonnell made history by being the first surgeon in Ireland to use general anaesthesia during an operation. Anaesthesia is medicine that makes a patient unconscious and unable to feel pain during surgery.

On 31 December 1846, he was scheduled to remove an arm from an 18-year-old woman named Mary Kane. The day before the surgery, he read an article about a new way to make operations painless. The article described how doctors in the United States and London were using ether gas to put patients to sleep.

MacDonnell decided to try this new method. He postponed the surgery to build his own ether dispenser and test it on himself first. On 1 January 1847, he performed the amputation. He successfully used ether to make Mary Kane feel no pain during the procedure. Other doctors and medical students watched this important surgery.

Later that day, he wrote a report about the operation. He called it "Amputation of the arm, performed at the Richmond Hospital, without pain." This report was published in the Dublin Medical Press. MacDonnell knew his ether machine was simple and not perfect for long operations. He suggested that more experiments should be done on animals to find the best way to mix air and ether for patients.

He was part of a special committee that studied how to use ether in surgery. This committee reported their findings on 20 January 1847. They warned that using ether could be dangerous for patients with heart or lung problems.

Other Contributions

John MacDonnell continued to be an important figure in medicine. From 1847 to 1851, he was a professor of anatomy at the RCSI. He also worked for the Poor Law Commission from 1851 to 1876, helping to manage public health and welfare.

From 1842 to 1846, MacDonnell was the editor of the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. He also wrote many articles for other medical journals. In 1884, he wrote a book about the work of Charles Darwin, a famous scientist. He also published historical books about Ireland.