Medicine
Section President:
Section Secretary:
Section Council Members:
Representative on General Council:
The Section of Medicine was one of the original sections of the academy, established in 1882. The Section of Medicine replaced the Medical Society of the College of Physicians. The Section of Medicine is governed by a council and President. The section holds a series of monthly meetings from October to May were members present medical cases.
Here is the opening address from the first meeting of the Medical Section held on Friday, 15th December 1882:
President – William Moore, M.D., President K.Q.C.P
Sectional Secretary -A. N. Montgomery, M.K.Q.C.P.
The President delivered an Inaugural Address. Having alluded to the absorption of the Medical Society of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians into the Academy of Medicine in Ireland as its Medical Section, he reviewed at considerable length the advances made in the diagnosis of disease, particularly within the last twenty-five years. He referred first to affections of the chest, differential diagnosis of which was now well-nigh perfect. In certain cases clinical observations of the temperature had proved of great use, and the most recent advance was the demonstration by Prof. Robert Koch of the germ origin of pulmonary tuberculosis. To Laennee was due the elucidation of cardiac diseases, and to Traube in great measure the knowledge of the relations which may exlst between these and renal affections. The diagnosis of valvular diseases had become very exact, but the precise value of murmurs as regards diagnosis and prognosis was apt to be over-estimated. Nor was the diagnosis of abdominal aneurism always an easy matter.
Great advances had also been made in the study of specific fevers, especially the endemic fever of this country, enteric or typhoid fever. Again, much had been done in the localisation of cerebral and spinal diseases, among the more interesting of this class of maladies being hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, and hemian~csthesia. As regards the treatment of some of these affections he mentioned remarkable instances in which good results had followed the practice of metallotherapy.
The General Council of the Academy approved the Section of Medicine Bronze Medal Prize from Registrar’s Prize to “Clinical Cases Medal” at its meeting in May 1996.