Robert Adams

Who was Robert Adams?

Robert Adams was an Irish surgeon.

He was born in Ireland, studied at Trinity College, Dublin between 1810 and 1814 and received his B.A. in 1814. He began his medical training under William Hartigan and George Stewart, leading Dublin surgeons. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1818 and then went abroad to complete his medical and surgical training.

On his return to Dublin he was elected surgeon to the Jervis Street Hospital and the Richmond Hospital. He took part in founding the Carmichael School of Medicine and taught there for many years.

He later became three times president of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Dublin Pathological Society, and, in 1862, both Surgeon in Ordinary to the Queen in Ireland, and Regius Professor of Surgery at the University of Dublin.

His work focussed on cardiac, respiratory, vascular and joint diseases, and emphasised postmortem examination. He published a number of important medical texts, including Diseases of the Heart, but it was his work on gout, from which he suffered himself, that made him famous.

Stokes–Adams disease is named after him and William Stokes.

He was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.