Sir Richard Quain (b. Mallow 1816, d. 1898), F.R.S., spent most of his life in London, where he was for years the most prominent physician. He wrote on many subjects, but the Dictionary of Medicine, which he edited and which bears his name, has made itself and its editor known all over the world.
Sir Almroth Wright (b. 1861), F.R.S., is the greatest living authority on the important subject of vaccino-therapy, which, indeed, may be said to owe its origin to his researches, as do the methods for measuring the protective substances in the human blood. He was the discoverer of the anti-typhoid injection which has done so much to stay the ravages of that disease.
ENGINEERING.
Bindon Blood Stoney (1828-1909), F.R.S., made his reputation first as an astronomer by discovering the spiral character of the great nebula in Andromeda. Turning to engineering, he was responsible for the construction of many important works, especially in connection with the port of Dublin. He was brother of G. J. Stoney.
Sir Charles Parsons (b. 1854), F.R.S., fourth son of the third Earl of Rosse, is the engineer who developed the steam turbine system and made it suitable for the generation of electricity, and for the propulsion of war and mercantile vessels. If he has revolutionized traffic on the water, so on the land has John Boyd Dunlop (still living), who discovered the pneumatic tire with such wide-spread results for motorcars, bicycles, and such means of locomotion.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock (b. Dundalk 1819, d. 1907), F.R.S., was one of the great Arctic explorers, having spent eleven navigable seasons and six winters in those regions. He was the chief leader and organizer of the Franklin searches. From the scientific point of view he made a valuable collection of miocene fossils from Greenland, and enabled Haughton to prepare the geological map and memoir of the Parry Archipelago.
John Ball (b. Dublin 1818, d. 1889), F.R.S., educated at Oscott, passed the examination for a high degree at Cambridge, but, being a Catholic, was excluded from the degree itself and any other honors which a Protestant might have attained to. He travelled widely and published many works on the natural history of Europe and South America from Panama to Tierra del Fuego. He was the first to suggest the utilization of the electric telegraph for meteorological purposes connected with storm warnings.
Space ought to be found for a cursory mention of that strange person, Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), who by his Lardner's Cyclopaedia in 132 vols., his Cabinet Library, and his Museum of Science and Art, did much to popularize science in an unscientific day.