Jonathan Osborne MD, FRCPI
Elected 13 October, 1840.

Jonathan Osborne, MD, FRCPI was born at Cullenswood House, in Ranelagh in the year 1794. He attended Trinity College Dublin, graduating BA in 1815, MD in 1818 and MD in 1837. He also studied at the University of Bologna. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) in 1819 and Fellow in 1823. He later went on to serve as President of the RCPI over two years between 1834 and 1836. He held a number of hospital positions over his long career at the Mercer’s Hospital between 1835 and 1864 and at Sir Patrick Dub’s Hospital between 1830 and 1864. He was elected as the fourth Kings’ Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy in 1840 until his death in 1864. He also lectured at the Ledwich School of Medicine in 1838 and at Medico-Chirurgical School on Park Street in 1825. He was both a member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and the Royal Society of Quebec. Notable publications of his include. “A Sketch of the Physiology of Urine (1820)” and “On Dropsies (1835, 2nd ed. 1837; German trans. 1840)”. He was hailed as an underappreciated pioneer of nephrology and is remembered for his therapeutic approach to epilepsy and neuralgia. He was a master of both Greek and Latin. He also published on topics such as Socrates’ poison, also known as hemlock and on the plague of Athens as described by Thucydides. 

Personal Life:

He was married twice, first to Charlotte Egan, with whom he had three sons, and later to Catherine Sophia Gerrard, with whom he had one daughter and one son, who passed away before him. He was known for his wit, having once lectured under an umbrella due to a leaky roof, sarcastically commenting on the treatment of the faculty in the college. He walked with two sticks due to rheumatism. He died on January the 22nd, 1864 at Clermont House in Blackrock in Dublin and was buried upright in St Michan’s Church, Dublin “so as not to be at a disadvantage at the resurrection.”