Bernard Connor

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Connor, Bernard, M.D., was born in Kerry in 1666. He studied medicine in Paris. Two fellow-students, sons of the Polish Chancellor, induced him to visit Poland, where he was appointed physician to the king, John Sobieski. In 1694 he followed the Electress of Bavaria to Brussels as her physician; and in 1695 he went to England, where he abjured Catholicism and took up his residence at Oxford. The publication of some medical treatises brought him much reputation, and he was elected member of the College of Surgeons and Fellow of the Royal Society. About 1697 he published his History of Poland, a work that attracted much attention to that country. He died in 1698, at the early age of 32, having latterly devoted himself to the practice of his profession in London. In his Medicina Mystica was an attempt to explain the miracles related in the New Testament by ascribing them to the agency of natural causes.

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

42. Biographical Dictionary: Rev. Hugh J. Rose. 12 vols. London, 1850.

339. Ware, Sir James, Works: Walter Harris. 2 vols. Dublin, 1764.

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