Richard Quain (Irish physician) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir
Richard Quain
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Sir Richard Quain in 1881
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| Born | 30 October 1816 |
| Died | 13 March 1898 (aged 81) |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Alma mater | University College, London |
| Occupation | Physician |
| Known for | Quain's Dictionary of Medicine |
Sir Richard Quain, 1st Baronet, FRS, FRCP (30 October 1816 – 13 March 1898) was an Irish physician.
Contents
Life
He was born at Mallow-on-the-Blackwater, County Cork, and died in Harley Street, London.
Quain was the eldest child of John Quain of Carraig Dhúin (Carrigoon), Cork and Mary, daughter of Michael Burke of Mallow, Cork. He was sent to the Diocesan School at Cloyne for his early education and then, aged 15, apprenticed to the surgeon-apothecary Fraser in Limerick for five years. In 1837 he enrolled in medicine at the University College London where his cousins, Jones Quain, the anatomist and author of Quain's Elements of Anatomy, and Richard Quain, FRCS, later the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, held teaching posts. He graduated M.B. with honours in 1840.
He married Isabella Agnes Wray (21 Jun 1828 - 26 Oct 1891), the daughter of George Wray, on 31 January 1854 at Hampstead. He was a great-grandfather of author Ian Fleming.
Career
Quain received his early education at Cloyne, and was then apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary in Limerick. In 1837, he entered University College London, where he graduated as M.B. with honours in 1840, and as MD (gold medal) in 1842. Six years later, he was chosen to be an assistant-physician to the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He retained his connection with that institution until his death, first as full physician (1855), and subsequently as consulting physician (1875).
In 1842, he received the gold medal for achievements in physiology and comparative anatomy, and later he became successively house surgeon and house physician at the University College Hospital and commenced practice in London, being in particular a protégé of professor Charles James Blasius Williams (1805–1889). He soon had a busy practice, numbering an important clientele, with contacts to the most highly recognised persons.
In 1848, Quain was appointed assistant physician at the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He was raised to full physician in 1855 and was made consulting physician in 1875. He held the same rank at the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich, and the Royal Hospital for Consumption in Ventnor.
In 1846, Quain became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow in 1851. In 1850, he vacated the Chair of Anatomy at the University College London and was succeeded by George Viner Ellis. In 1862 he served as a member of the council of the Royal College of Physicians, 1867 censor, 1877 senior censor. He was an early member of the Pathological Society of London in 1862, being elected its president in 1869. He was also a fellow and vice-president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and the Medical Society of London, as well as President of the Harveian Society of London (1853) and fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1871. His address to the Society was On the mechanism by which the first sound of heart is produced.
He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1851, and filled almost every post of honour it could offer, except the presidency, in the contest for which he was beaten by Sir Andrew Clark in 1888. In 1881, he was asked by Queen Victoria to attend prime minister Benjamin Disraeli during his last few days. He later, in 1890, became physician-extraordinary to the Queen, and was created a baronet of Harley Street in the County of London and of Carrigoon in Mallow in the County of Cork, in the following year.
He sat on the Royal Commission on Rinderpest (cattle plague) in 1865.
Quain was the author of several memoirs, dealing for the most part with disorders of the heart, but his name will be best remembered by the Dictionary of Medicine, the preparation of which occupied him from 1875 to 1882 (2nd edition, 1894; 3rd, 1902).
Publications
- A Dictionary of Medicine. London, 1882. 3rd edition, Longmans Green, 1894. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1883.
- A Dictionary of medicine : including general pathology, general therapeutics, hygiene and the diseases of women and children; by various writers; ed. by Richard Quain; assisted by Frederick Thomas Roberts and J. Mitchell Bruce; with an American appendix by Samuel Treat Armstrong. New York : D. Appleton and Co., 1894
Terms
- Quain's fatty heart — Fatty degeneration of the muscle fibres of the heart.
Arms
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