Joseph Clarke

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Clarke, Joseph, M.D., a distinguished physician, was born in the County of Londonderry in 1758. After receiving his preliminary education in Ireland, he studied at Glasgow and Edinburgh. Endowed with indomitable perseverance, and with abilities of a high order, he worked his way up from a fortune of £400, out of which his education was paid for, to an annual practice in Dublin of £3,000 per annum. From his fee-book we learn that he received £37,252 in fees of £10 and upwards. Under date 11th November 1801, where a one-pound note is entered, he adds, "First of these vile productions." The gold guinea, the hitherto accustomed fee, was worth £1 2s. 9d, Irish. Of 3,847 cases of parturition he attended in his private practice during forty-four years, it is stated that there were but twenty-two deaths, and of these but eight were the result of child-birth. His name is specially connected with the Rotunda Hospital, of which he was for many years master. He died in 1834 in Edinburgh, whither he had gone to read a paper before the British Association.

Sources

115. Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (7). Dublin, 1846-'77.

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