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Section IV. 



The Rise of a Medical Profession. — Introduction or 

 Continental Methods. 



About 1628 Valentine Greatrakes, of Afiane, Co. Waterford, 

 by passing his hand over the part affected in various diseases, 

 is said to have restored health. He was so famous that he 

 ■was eventually ordered to England by Charles II. Id the 

 memoirs of the Earl of Orrery by Love we learn that " the 

 Royal Society and other modern philosophers," not able to 

 dispute the result which he obtained, found words to define 

 it, and called those strange effects " a sanative contagion in 

 his body which had an antipathy to some particular disease 

 and not to others." Some instances of the cures performed 

 by Greatrakes are given in the " Philosophical Transactions " 

 by a Mr. Thoresby. 



Greatrakes was one of the first to develop this method of 

 healing, which, we believe, emanated from the doctrine pro- 

 pounded by Paracelsus in De Peste ; this was the beginning of 

 modem hypnotism and animal magnetism. A similar method, 

 in conjunction with exorcism, was used by an Irish priest 

 named Jas. Eeenachty about the period of the restoration. 

 Both Greatrakes and Feenachty eventually lost their fame. 

 Greatrakes died in Dublin in obscurity. 



The " Philosophical Society of Dublin " was founded in 

 1683 by Wm. Molyneux, who was a lawyer with a leaning 

 towards science. This society was the only means by which 

 Irish medical men could announce anything new or make 

 known their opinions, previous to the foundation of the 

 Medical School of Trinity College in 1710. One of the subjects 

 discussed by Molyneux was the microscopic examination of 

 the blood. His paper read before the Society would suggest 

 that even at this early date medical jurisprudence was studied 

 on a scientific basis in this country. A younger brother 

 Thomas Molyneux, was a physician, botanist, and classical 

 scholar. He has written papers on " Stone in the Bladder," 

 ■"Epidemic Influenza" and the " Vesiculae Seminales."' 



