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THE IRISH MIND
A selection of the ‘10,000 men who guard the past’ are presented below in an attempt to examine some of the most notable elements of Irish science over the last few centuries.
CHEMISTRY/BIOLOGY/MEDICINE RobertBoyle (1627–1691) was born at Lismore Castle, CoWaterford. Some- times referred to as the ‘Father of Chemistry’, Boyle is regarded as the first modern chemist. He wrote The Sceptical Chymist, which put forward his theory that matter consists of atoms and clusters of atoms in motion. He is probably best known for Boyle’s Law, which describes the inverse rela- tionship between the volume of a gas and its absolute pressure at constant temperature.
Edward Joseph Conway (1894–1968), who was born in Nenagh, Co Tipper- ary, was an international authority on electrolyte physiology. He published two books:MicrodiffusionAnalysis and Volumetric Error and The Biochemistry of GastricAcid Secretion. In 1932, he was appointed chair of biochemistry and pharmacology in University Col- lege Dublin. He developed a microbu- rette and diffusion unit – the Conway Unit – which became a standard method of microanalysis. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1947 and received the Boyle medal in 1968. His key areas of research were renal function, ionic balance of tissue and acid secretion by yeast and gastric mucosa.
Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971) was born in Newbridge, Co Kildare, and became an early pioneer of X-ray crys- tallography. She was the first person to prove that the benzene ring is flat. She was the first female professor at
RobertBoyle
University College London, where she was professor of chemistry, and was jointly the first woman elected to fel- lowship of the Royal Society in 1945. A dedicated pacifist, she spent a month in jail in 1943 for her convictions.
DenisBurkitt (1911–1993) was born in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh and, after qualifying as a surgeon, worked in Uganda for a number of years. It was there in 1957 that he described for the first time Burkitt’s lymphoma, a paedi- atric cancer of the lymphatic system. In the early 1960s after travelling around Africa, he mapped the geo- graphical spread of the disease and demonstrated that it is transmitted by mosquitoes through the spread of the Epstein-barr virus. Burkitt later moved to London where he focused on the importance of fibre in the diet.
76 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 3 Autumn/Winter 2011
RichardKirwan (1733–1812), who was known for being both a scientist and eccentric, was born in 1733 in Cloghballymore, Co Galway. He was a committed supporter of the Phlogiston theory. Having spent a number of years in London, he returned to Ire- land in 1787 and, in the same year, his Essay on Phlogiston was published. He was active in the areas of chemistry, geology and meteorology. One of his meteorological studies involved con- structing a table showing the tempera- ture of every latitude between the equator and the poles.
EllenHutchins (1785–1815) was an early Irish botanist who was born in Ballylickey, Co Cork. Hutchins was an avid collector of cryptogamic, or non- flowering plants, such as mosses, lichens and algae, particularly around
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