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Dr William Smyth (1859 - 1901): |
William Smyth was one of all too many members of the medical profession who have made not only personal sacrifices in the course of their work, but also the supreme one, as they exposed themselves not merely to war, political dictatorships or terrorism, but to the often far more toxic dangers of what were called “epidemic and contagious diseases”.
Smyth was born at Stonepark, Mountcharles, County Donegal, where his father was a dispensary doctor. He was educated at the Royal School, Raphoe and the University of Dublin where in 1880 he achieved the licence in Medicine; he also took the “letters testimonial” of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was appointed dispensary doctor in Ardara, County Donegal but in 1882 he replaced Dr Spencer, dispensary doctor covering the congested districts dispensaries of Dungloe and Burtonport, which included many offshore islands. Various bodies thought very highly of him personally and professionally (such as his technical employers, the Glenties Board of Guardians), as did notable local dignitaries (such as Father Bernard walker, parish priest at Burtonport). Smyth frequently had to row himself round the islands.
This became especially important when an extended family, the Gallaghers, contracted what was described as “fever” in October 1901, and Whyte, though he now had an assistant, nevertheless had to make many rowing trips. In November he made a brief trip to Glasgow, and on his return he was extremely ill and died at Dungloe of “fever” – in fact, typhus, as diagnosed by Dr CER Gardiner of Dungloe – and was buried in Dungloe parish church alongside those six of his children who had died in infancy. He left a further eight children and a widow, the former Esther McKeown whom he had married in April 1883.
Smyth’s activities attracted wise attention. A biography by FD How, A Hero of Donegal, was published in London in 1902, as well as eulogistic poems. When a financial appeal was launched for the support of his family, it was headed by Sir Christopher Nixon, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and Dr (later Sir) Thomas Myles, President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; the board of trustees appointed was chaired by the Duke of Abercorn and a sum of £6,000 was collected. Sir William Whitla, perhaps the leading contemporary figure in Ulster medicine, commissioned a memorial window for the new Medical Institute in College Square North, Belfast, which housed the Ulster Medical society; the window was unveiled by the Countess of Dudley, wife of the Lord Lieutenant. In 1976 The Institute building, by then functionally derelict, was abandoned by the Ulster Medical Society, which relocated to the Whitla Medical Institute in premises belonging to Queen’s University, Belfast, near the City Hospital, Lisburn Road. The memorial window to Dr Smyth was installed in the Society’s Council Room. Smyth was by no means the only doctor to die of disease in the course of his duty – in 1847 alone, during the Famine, some 130 doctors so succumbed – but he was one of the most notable.
Born: | 30 March 1859 |
Died: | 19 November 1901 |
Richard Froggatt |
Acknowledgements: Sir Peter Froggatt |
Bibliography: Journal of the Irish Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, vol 24/4 (October 1995) |
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