The hospital was opened to serve the sick and poor in the crowded area of the Liberties in Dublin in 1753.[1] It then moved to larger premises in Heytesbury Street in 1822.[2]
In the nineteenth century the Meath Hospital achieved worldwide fame as a result of the revolutionary teaching methods and groundbreaking research carried out by Robert Graves and William Stokes, physicians of the hospital. One example was when during a typhus epidemic Robert Graves introduced the revolutionary idea of giving food during the illness ("he fed fevers" was what Graves requested be inscribed on his tombstone).[3]
It was absorbed into the Tallaght Hospital in June 1998.[4] The original building was subsequently converted for use as a respite home.[5]
John Cheyne (1777–1836), appointed a physician in the hospital in 1811.[6]
Sir Philip Crampton (1777–1858), appointed surgeon to the hospital in 1798 (though not fully qualified).[7]
Patrick Harkan, of Raheen, County Roscommon, appointed a physician in the hospital in 1817. He later went on to the Cork Street Fever Hospital, where he remained for forty years.[8]
Francis Rynd (1801-1861), physician and inventor of the hypodermic syringe.[9]
^Doyle, D (December 2006). "Eponymous doctors associated with Edinburgh, Part 2--David Bruce, John Cheyne, William Stokes, Alexander Monro Secundus, Joseph Gamgee". The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 36 (4): 374–81. PMID17526135.
