Abstract
IN April one hundred years ago, the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, appointed Robert Ball as director of the Museum, With rooms and facilities for delivering lectures "illustrative of its contents and uses". The study of natural history in the University of Dublin began much earlier with the work of William and Thomas Molyneux, grandsons of the Englishman, Sir Thomas Molyneux, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1558. It was William Molyneux who, in 1684, demonstrated the flow of the blood in the newt, by means of the microscope. Whitley Stokes, father of the great Sir William Stokes, the physician, was appointed professor of natural history and curator of the Museum in 1815. His lectures dealt with "Volcanic Theory and Igneous Origin of Rocks, different portions of Zoology, Mineralogy and a Course in Mining and Metallurgy, and with the Natural Resources of Ireland". In 1791, Whitley Stokes was put on trial for his alleged implication in the United Irishmen Movement. He suffered much for his political opinions.
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GATENBY, J. Centenary of Zoological Teaching in Trinity College, Dublin*. Nature 153, 723 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153723a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153723a0