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Samuel Black (1762 - 1832):
Physician


Samuel Black was probably born in County Down. He was educated at Edinburgh University and studied anatomy, surgery, materia medica, midwifery, the theory and practice of medicine, natural philosophy and botany. He graduated in 1786 as a doctor of medicine. His thesis, which dealt with the properties of water, is in the library of Queen's University, Belfast. He set up a medical practice in Newry in the late 1780s and though he spent some time in Dublin, resided there until his death. His major contribution was his diagnosis of angina and his disection of four cases of angina pectoris. In his book, Clinical and Pathological Reports (1818), he lists people who were liable to develop heart disease: men, people psychologically stressed, those with an accumulation of fat around the heart, those who ate well and did not exercise. He also lists those who were not: women, foot soldiers, the poor and the French. In 1795 his first paper on angina pectoris was published, where he notes that through disection he had observed 'ossification of the arteries of the heart'. In 1812 he is mentioned in the first edition of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. In 1817, he treated victims of the typhus epidemic in Newry, and in 1821 published 'Account of the Fever Lately Epidemic in Ireland'. He also made a significant contribution to the study of neurology, diabetes and public health.

Born: 1762
Died: 1832
Kate Newmann