Adams Andrew McConnell (1884–1972): Pioneer of Irish neurosurgery

Abstract

Adams Andrew McConnell (1884–1972) is widely credited as the first neurosurgeon in Ireland. He was largely self-taught but also learned his craft by observing the work of other early neurosurgeons like Harvey Williams Cushing and Walter Dandy in the United States or Sir Geoffrey Jefferson and Sir Hugh Cairns in the Great Britain. He introduced the technique of ventriculography to Europe, having learned it from Dandy. He was a founder member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in 1926 and served as its president from 1936 to 1938. He was also president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He published papers on a wide variety of topics, including one of the first descriptions of suboccipital decompression for Chiari malformation in 1938. He contributed to surgical education in Ireland as Professor of Surgery at RCSI and later at his alma mater, Trinity College Dublin, and by training a large number of assistants who went on to become important Irish surgeons in the twentieth century. As a doctor, Adams Andrew McConnell was a pioneering figure. For many years, he was the only neurosurgeon in Ireland and his legacy still lives on at the National Neurosurgical Centre at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where one of the neurosurgical wards bears his name. This article recounts his life and numerous achievements.

Keywords::

• Surgery
• history of neurosurgery
• brain tumours
• intracranial infections
• Chiari type I malformation

Declaration of interest: The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.