Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1663

WILLIAM STOKES (1804-1878) A treatise on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the chest. Part 1. Diseases of the lung and windpipe. Hodges and Smith 1837 xx, 557 pp. 22.2 cm.

Stokes, a colleague and close friend of Robert Graves (see No. 1541 ff.), was the son of Whitley Stokes, Regius professor of medicine at the University of Dublin and himself a distinguished and accomplished physician. Stokes succeeded his father as Regius professor in 1845. William studied chemistry at Glasgow and then went to Edinburgh where he received his medical degree in 1823. Before returning to Dublin in 1825, he published the first treatise on the stethoscope in the English language. After his return to Dublin, he was appointed physician to Meath Hospital, a position he held for nearly fifty years. In addition, he was one of the editors of the Dublin journal of medical science, taught at the University, and maintained an extensive private practice. Stokes established his reputation in the history and development of internal medicine through the publication of this work. He describes the peculiar type of breathing known as Cheyne-Stokes respiration, a first stage of pneumonia not known before, and other findings of significance. The projected second part was never published.

See Related Record(s): 1541

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 2213; Osler 4035; Waller 9280

Gift of Drs. Robert and Janet Wilcox