| Robert Graves, the son of an episcopal clergyman | | | | vessel was at the mercy of a raging tempest and |
| was born in Dublin in 1797, the same year that | | | | suddenly began to take on water and sink. The bilge |
| Napoleon was leading his armies over the Alps to | | | | pumps were leaking and the crew found themselves |
| threaten the citizens of Vienna. He was a brilliant | | | | unable to save the stricken craft. Amidst the frenzy of |
| student and graduated with a first class medical | | | | the thunderous storm the crew mutinied and |
| degree in the fall of 1818 as Abraham Lincoln's mother | | | | abandoned ship by stealing the only lifeboat that was |
| Nancy, lay dying of 'milk fever' in a small wooden hut in | | | | aboard the stricken vessel. Graves was incensed and |
| the untamed forestlands of Indiana. It appears that as | | | | refused to allow himself or his fellow passengers to be |
| well as being an excellent scholar, Graves was also a | | | | left to the peril of the seas. He ran forward and |
| passionate adventurer and often told his medical | | | | grabbed a nearby fire axe and holed the lifeboat as |
| friends that 'there was always something waiting to be | | | | the mutinous sailors lowered it into the turbulent waters. |
| discovered if we only took the time to look for it'. It is | | | | He then gathered leather from the shoes of the |
| therefore of no surprise that when Graves completed | | | | passengers and proceeded to fix the bilge pumps. The |
| his medical studies he decided to further his knowledge | | | | ship was sailed into port the next morning and |
| of the Arts by travelling overland on the continent. Let | | | | everybody on board was saved. |
| us remember that this was the European mainland of | | | | Graves returned to Dublin in 1821, in the year that |
| the 1820's and a lot of the continent was still | | | | Napoleon died on a small British outcrop of rock in the |
| considered alien to most people on these islands. The | | | | south Atlantic, and he became chief physician at the |
| perception of the ancient palaces of Rome or maybe | | | | Meath Hospital. He continued his idea of believing that |
| the evening mist settling on the sleepy canals of | | | | 'everything was waiting to be discovered if you only |
| Venice were often images snatched from lines of | | | | look for it' and before long he had described |
| poetry or from the canvases of travelling painters. | | | | hyperthyroidism, scleroderma, pontine haemorrhages, |
| Many people of this period were highly suspicious of | | | | angioneurotic oedema as well as pathological fractures |
| strangers who were often considered to be displaced | | | | and the paraneoplastic syndrome, erythromelalgia. He |
| soldiers wandering around after the recent battle of | | | | was also a great teacher and taught in English, which |
| Waterloo. It was in a little lakeside Austrian village that | | | | was unusual and most medical classes in the 1820's still |
| Graves eventually aroused the distrust of the locals | | | | taught their pupils in a sort of Latin and his clinical notes |
| and he was arrested and held as a Prussian spy. It | | | | were used by Trousseau (Trousseau's sign) in Paris in |
| appears that the local authorities refused to believe | | | | 1825. When Trousseau wrote a clinical text some |
| that an Irishman could speak German so well and the | | | | years later it was translated into English and used in |
| unfortunate scholar had to stay in jail for ten days | | | | Dublin. Graves became a good friend of William |
| before he could get verification of his identity sent | | | | Stokes and also became passionate about the |
| from Dublin. In 1821, Graves was travelling alone in | | | | introduction of the stethoscope into clinical examination |
| Switzerland and found himself staying in the same | | | | of the chest and abdomen. |
| hotel as the famous English painter, J.M.W. Turner. Both | | | | They both shared ward rounds in the Meath Hospital |
| men struck up a friendship and they travelled and | | | | and often spent long hours teaching medical students |
| painted together for many months before finally parting | | | | the signs of illness. In the midst of a busy round |
| company outside the Vatican in Rome. Many of | | | | Graves once joked to his residents that Stoke's' |
| Turner's famous storm scenes come from that period | | | | epitaph should be 'He fed fevers'. He died in 1853, as |
| of his life and often show dreary afternoon skies | | | | Guiseppe Verdi's Il Traviata was having its premiere in |
| heavily streaked with dark cautioning thunderclouds. It is | | | | La Scala in Milan. I often feel sad that people like |
| surmised by some that Robert Graves may have | | | | Robert Graves are not alive today as they certainly |
| been the physical inspiration for one of Turners more | | | | would brighten the world of Irish medicine and enjoy |
| imposing storm paintings, The Fishermen at Sea. | | | | the clinical benefits we now possess. Maybe |
| In this picture the inky blackness of the night is | | | | somebody will remember one of our present |
| gathering fast and a sliver of a white moon shows a | | | | consultants in a century and a half from now in the |
| fishing vessel being tossed and thrown about at sea. It | | | | highly technologised society our own children will help |
| is known that Graves once was caught in a violent | | | | to create. |
| storm while on a sailing ship on the Mediterranean. The | | | | |