Minutes of Proceedings. 21 



Already in 1825, when he was but twenty-one years of age, had 

 api3eared his first contribution to medical literature — his Introduc- 

 tion to the Use of the Stethoscope, founded on the works of Laennec 

 and Andral, but containing much original matter, and giving clear 

 promise of his future eminence. This work was followed, in 1828, by 

 two lectures " On the Application of the Stethoscope to the Diagnosis 

 and Treatment of Thoracic Disease." At this time the new instru- 

 ment was far from having obtained general acceptance amongst the 

 members of the profession. But Stokes caught up, with enthusiasm, 

 the additional resource which had been placed at the disposal of the 

 physician, declaring that "it had added more to the facility, cer- 

 tainty, and utnity of diagnosis than anything that had been done for 

 centuries." 



Very soon after his appointment to the Meath Hospital he began 

 to contribute to the medical periodicals of the day. Many Papers of 

 his appeared in the Dublin Hospital Reports, the Dublin Hospital 

 Gazette, the Transactions of the Association of the College of Physi- 

 cians, and in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science, which, at first 

 edited by our President, Sir Ptobert Kane, was afterwards, for several 

 years, conducted by Grraves and Stokes. Some of his communica- 

 tions to the last-named Journal were in the form of Eeports of 

 the Pathological Society, which had been founded by Stokes in con- 

 junction with the late Professor R. W. Smith ; others were of the 

 nature of Reviews, amongst which may be particularly mentioned his 

 notice of Calmeil's Treatise on Insanity, in which he points out the 

 relations between the phenomena of the mesmeric state and those 

 exhibited in the nervous epidemics which have appeared more than 

 once in medieval and modern Europe. 



In 1837, Dr. Stokes published the first of his great medical works 

 — his Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest. 

 This work at once established his reputation as standing in the fore- 

 most rank of clinical observers. It was received by the profession at 

 home and abroad as a most valuable contribution to science ; and 

 honorary distinctions were conferred on its author by many medical 

 societies on the Continent of Europe and in America. In 1854 ap- 

 peared his work On Diseases of theSeart and Aorta, which took similar 

 rank with its predecessor in the estimation of the medical world. 

 So late as 1874, completing the Triad of Classical Treatises from his 



