John Stearne (physician)
John Stearne or Sterne (1624–1669) was an Irish academic, founder of the
Early life
He was born on 26 November 1624 at Ardbraccan, the episcopal palace of his grand-uncle, James Ussher, at that point bishop of Meath. His father John Stearne of Cambridge, who settled in County Down and married Mabel Bermingham, a niece of Ussher, was a remote relation of Archbishop Richard Sterne.[1]
Stearne entered
At Dublin
In 1656, Stearne was appointed the first Hebrew lecturer in Trinity College, Dublin, receiving the degree of M.D. in 1658, and that of LL.D. in 1660. In 1659, he resigned his fellowship; but was appointed to a senior fellowship in 1660, after the
Stearne is best known as the founder of the Irish College of Physicians. In 1660, he proposed to the university that Trinity Hall, situated in Back Lane, Dublin, then affiliated to the university, of which he had been constituted president in 1654, should be a college of physicians. The arrangement was sanctioned, and Stearne, on the nomination of the provost and senior fellows of Trinity College, in whom the appointment was vested, became its first president. No students were to be admitted who did not belong to Trinity College.[1]
In 1662, Stearne was appointed, for life, professor of medicine at the university. In 1667, a charter was granted to the College of Physicians, under which a governing body of fourteen fellows was constituted—of whom
Death
Stearne died in Dublin on 18 November 1669 in his 44th year. He was buried, by his own request, in the chapel of Trinity College, where his epitaph, by his friend
Works
Stearne wrote the following works, published in Dublin:[1]
- Animi Medela, dedicated to Henry Cromwell, 1653.
- Thanatologia, 1656.
- Adriani Heerboordii disputationum de concursu examen, 1660.
- De Electione et Reprobatione, 1662.
- Aphorismi de Felicitate, 1664.
- De Destinatione, posthumously published and edited by Henry Dodwell, his pupil and literary executor, 1672.
Family
By his marriage in 1659 to Dorothy, daughter of Charles Ryves, examiner to the Court of Chancery (Ireland), and sister of Sir Richard Ryves, Recorder of Dublin, Stearne had issue three daughters and one son, John Sterne, Bishop of Clogher.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Sterne, John (1624–1669)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 54. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ "Sterne, John (STN642J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
External links
- Media related to John Stearne (physician) at Wikimedia Commons