Samuel Clossy MB MD (''c.'' 1724 – 22 August 1786) was a pioneering Irish

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and the first college professor of a medical subject in

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Early life and education

Samuel Clossy was born around 1724 in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

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. His parents were Bartholomew Clossy, a wealthy city merchant, and Anne Ogle. He was educated in

Cashel, County Tipperary Cashel (; ) is a town in County Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,422 in the 2016 census of Ireland, 2016 census. The town gives its name to the ecclesiastical province of ''Cashel''. Additionally, the ''cathedra'' of the Roman Cathol ...

, entering

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

(TCD), in 1739, sponsored by Dr William Stephens. He graduated with an MB in 1751. After some studying in London under the anatomist William Hunter, he was awarded his MD from TCD in 1755, and his licence of the Irish College of Physicians. He was elected a fellow of the College in 1761.

Career

Observations On some of the Diseases Of the Parts of the Human Body

At Dr Stephens' invitation Clossy undertook autopsy work in Dr Steevens' Hospital from 1752 to 1756, and was a member of the Medico-Philosophical Society, which gave him an expertise in pathology. He also contributed articles to ''Repository''. After a period of unofficial work for

Mercer's Hospital Mercer's Hospital () was a hospital in Dublin, Ireland. It was converted into a clinical centre and medical library for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1991. and drew on his work in Dr Steevens' Hospital and St George's Hospital, London. He emigrated to

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in September 1763, where he had been promised a job at a planned military hospital. Having learnt that this hospital plan was floundering, he took up lecturing in anatomy, advertising the lectures in the ''New York Gazette and Post Boy'' on 17 November 1763 which were received "with delight". He was eventually employed as a tutor and then professor of

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in October 1765 at King's College. In 1767, he became the college's first professor of anatomy, making him the first college professor in a medical subject in North America. During his lectures, Clossy used the bodies of enslaved people for dissections. The

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and his declining health led him to return to

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late in 1780, where he spent 4 years trying unsuccessfully to find a new appointment. He addressed a sworn memorial to the Committee Appointed by Act of Parliament for Enquiring into the Losses and Services of the American Loyalists on 8 July 1784. He retired to Dublin with a pension, dying there on 22 August 1786. He had been elected an honorary fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians of Ireland The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), () is an Irish professional body dedicated to improving the practice of general medicine and related medical specialty, medical specialities, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by e ...

in 1784. On 12 May 1759 he married Elizabeth Leech in St Andrew’s Church, Dublin, who survived him along with a daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clossy, Samuel 1720s births 1786 deaths Alumni of Trinity College Dublin 18th-century Irish medical doctors Physicians of the Mercer's Hospital Physicians of Dr Steevens' Hospital Columbia University faculty Medical doctors from County Dublin