Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/375

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Stewart
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Stokes

congress on tuberculosis, of which he was appointed one of the vice-presidents, and at which the veteran Virchow introduced him as 'mein berühmtester Schüler.' He died at Edinburgh on 3 Feb. 1900, and was buried in the Dean cemetery.

Sir Thomas married (1), in 1863, Josephine Dubois, daughter of Charles Anderson of Riverhead, Jamaica (she died 1864); and (2), in 1866, Jessy Dingwall Fordyce, daughter of the Rev. Robert Macdonald, D.D., who, with four sons and four daughters, survived him.

As a clinical teacher Stewart was clear and systematic, and conducted his class by means of question and answer, while the students in rotation listened to abnormal sounds in the patient's chest or otherwise examined him. As a lecturer he was equally lucid and precise, with a marvellous faculty of going straight to the main point in each case, so that his doctrine was easily followed and understood even by the junior student. He was a man of wide and general culture, and devoted much of his spare and holiday time to the study of Scottish history and archæology. His greatest effort in pure literature was 'The Good Regent: a Chronicle Play' a drama on the subject of the Regent Moray, published in 1898. He had previously contributed fugitive verses and translations to different periodicals. He was an excellent vocalist and raconteur, was endowed with a fine presence, and had a gift of ready and graceful speech. He took a foremost part in founding and organising the Medical Students' Association, and was president for two terms of the Medical Missionary Society, in which he was keenly interested. His views on diseases of the kidneys have generally been accepted by the medical profession at home and abroad, and his work on this subject is a very able and consistent attempt to set in a clear light the involved and difficult questions connected with the pathology of Bright's disease. Stewart was also one of the first in this country to draw attention to the deep reflexes in neuritis, and under the title of 'Paralysis of the Hands and Feet from Disease of the Nerves' he described the condition now known as 'multiple neuritis.' Long before the reign of cerebral surgery had set in, he induced Professor (afterwards Lord) Lister to perform operations on the brain for traumatic epilepsy. His lectures were largely quoted on the continent, and several of them were translated into French, German, and Russian. That on 'Albuminuria' was at the date of his death used as a text-book in several of the German universities.

In addition to the works mentioned and a large number of papers and lectures, chiefly on the nervous system, the lungs, and the liver, as well as the Harveian oration, 'Notes on Scottish Medicine in the Days of Queen Mary,' reprinted in 'Blackwood's Magazine' cliii. 885-902 (June 1893), Sir Thomas wrote:

  1. 'On the Position and Prospects of Therapeutics,' Edinburgh, 1868, 8vo.
  2. 'An Introduction to the Study of the Diseases of the Nervous System,' Edinburgh, 1884, 8vo.
  3. 'Clinical Lectures on Important Symptoms: on Giddiness,' Edinburgh, 1884, 8vo (republished in 1898 with emendations and additions, and title, 'Lectures on Giddiness and on Hysteria in the Male').
  4. 'Clinical Lectures … Fasciculus II., on Albuminuria,' Edinburgh, 1888, 8vo.
  5. Chapters on 'Spastic Paraplegia," Friedreich's Ataxia,' and 'Hereditary Cerebellar Ataxia,' in vol. vii. of Allbutt's 'System of Medicine,' 1899, and several articles on Bright's disease and other subjects to Quain's 'Dictionary of Medicine' (new ed. 1894).

[Lancet, 1 Feb. 1 900, pp. 4 1 2-5 (with portrait); British Medical Journal, 10 Feb. 1900, pp. 355-359 (with portrait); Edinburgh Medical Journal, March 1900, pp. 307-8; Student (Edinburgh), xiv. 265-71 (new ser.) (with portrait); Men of the Time; Scotsman, 5 Feb. 1900; private information.]

G. S-h.

STOKES, GEORGE THOMAS (1843–1898), Irish ecclesiastical historian, was the eldest son of John Stokes of Athlone by Margaret Forster his wife, and was born in that town on 28 Dec. 1843. He was educated at Galway grammar school, Queen's College, Galway, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1864. He subsequently proceeded M.A. 1871, B.D. 1881, and D.D. 1886. In 1866 Stokes was ordained for the curacy of Dunkerrin in the diocese of Killaloe in the then established church of Ireland, and in the following year was appointed to the curacy of St. Patrick's, Newry. In 1868 he was nominated first vicar of the newly constituted charge of All Saints, Newtown Park, co. Dublin, which he held till his death. In 1893 he was elected by the chapter of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, to the prebend and canonry of St. Andrew.

Stokes early exhibited a taste for historical and antiquarian research, and from the first exhibited in its pursuit not merely an acuteness which was much beyond the ordinary, but a capacity for presenting the results of his investigations in a picturesque and striking form. From the date of his appointment to All Saints his leisure was devoted to these interests, which, however, were in his case almost invariably subordinated to the illumination of the ecclesiastical history