Sylvester O'Halloran

Sylvester O'Halloran was an Irish surgeon, born on 31 December 1728 and died on 11 August 1807, who lived and practised for most of his life in Limerick. The third son of a prosperous farmer at Caherdavin, he went to London at seventeen to learn medicine, studied further at Leyden and in Paris under the anatomist Antoine Ferrein, and set up as a surgeon in Limerick in 1749. He helped found the County Limerick Infirmary, which began with four beds in 1761, and wrote treatises on cataract and glaucoma, on amputation and on injuries to the head. His 1765 Proposals for the Advancement of Surgery in Ireland served as the blueprint for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which made him an honorary member when it received its charter in 1784. He also collected Gaelic poetry manuscripts, wrote on the early history of Ireland, and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1787.