Medicine and Charity in Ireland, 1718-1851

In this illuminating social history of medicine and charity in Ireland from 1718 until just after the Great Famine, Laurence M. Geary shows how illness and poverty reacted upon each other. The poverty resulting from great population growth that continued until the arrival of potato blight in 1845 had a severe effect on the health of the country's population, and the Famine itself caused around one million deaths from starvation and disease. This was a period of great change in medical and charitable services. A network of charities evolved in Ireland to provide free medical aid to the sick poor. The first voluntary hospital in Dublin opened in 1718 and Geary traces the establishment and development of voluntary hospitals and county infirmaries throughout the country. These had a strong Anglican ethos and bias, but after Catholic emancipation in 1829 the nepotism, sectarianism and divisive politics that were rife in these organisations came under increasing scrutiny. Geary describes developments in policy making and legislation, culminating in the 1851 Medical Charities Act.