William Stokes
William Stokes
Born	1 October 1804
Died	10 January 1878
Nationality	Ireland
Fields	medicine
Institutions	University of Dublin
Known for	Cheyne-Stokes breathing Stokes-Adams disease

William Stokes (1 October 1804 - 10 January 1878) was an Irish physician, who was Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Dublin. Educated in medicine at the Meath Hospital in Dublin, he went on to create two important works on cardiac and pulmonary diseases, A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest (1837), and The Diseases of the Heart and Aorta (1854), as well as one of the first treatises on the use of the stethoscope. He emphasised the importance of clinical examination in forming diagnoses, and of ward-based learning for students of medicine.

Both Cheyne-Stokes breathing (the alternation of apnea with tachypnea) and Stokes-Adams disease are named after him. Stokes' sign is a severe throbbing in the abdomen, at the right of the umbilicus, in acute enteritis. Stokes law is that a muscle situated above an inflamed membrane is often affected with paralysis.

In 1858, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

His son, Whitley Stokes, was a notable lawyer and Celtic scholar, his daughter Margaret Stokes an archaeologist and writer.

[edit] References

• 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. PMID 17526135. 
• Berry, Diana (June 2006). "History of cardiology: Robert Adams, MD, and William Stokes, MD". Circulation 113 (23): f92. PMID 16773739. 
• Ventura, H O; Mehra M R, Young J B (September 2001). "Treatment of heart failure according to William Stokes: the enchanted mercury". J. Card. Fail. 7 (3): 277–82. doi:10.1054/jcaf.2001.26564. PMID 11561230. 
• Coakley, D (1999). "Irish pioneers in medical education: Robert Graves (1796-1853) and William Stokes (1804-1877)". European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe 3 Suppl 1: 14–8. PMID 10865357. 
• Cantwell, J D (December 1988). "William Stokes (1804-1878)". Clinical cardiology 11 (12): 856–8. PMID 3069261. 
• Pinkerton, J H (April 1980). "John Creery Ferguson. Friend of William Stokes and pioneer of auscultation of the fetal heart in the British Isles". British journal of obstetrics and gynaecology 87 (4): 257–60. PMID 7000165. 
• Logan, P (December 1978). "William Stokes. View of a student". Irish medical journal 71 (18): 602–4. PMID 363641. 
• O'Brien, B (December 1978). "William Stokes (1804--1878)". Irish medical journal 71 (18): 598–601. PMID 363640. 
• O'Brien, E (September 1978). "William Stokes 1804-78: the development of a doctor". British medical journal 2 (6139): 749–50. PMID 359096. 
• Schoenberg, D G; Schoenberg B S (August 1978). "Eponym: William Stokes: stoking the fires of prevention and pathophysiologic patterns". South. Med. J. 71 (8): 956–7. PMID 356272. 
• Brian, V A (March 1977). "The man behind the name: William Stokes 1804-1878". Nursing times 73 (9): 311. PMID 322100. 
• Burchell, H B (March 1970). "The early use of the stethoscope in Scotland: William Stokes' contributions as a medical student". Biomedical Library bulletin (La Jolla, San Diego, Calif.) no. 13: 2–4. PMID 11616688. 
• "Men And Medicine (William Stokes)". Medical science 14: 77. August 1963. PMID 14061440. 
• FRALICK, F B. "William Herman Stokes". Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society 55: 5. PMID 13556806.