Letter 0996

Sir Patrick Dun (1642-1713) graduated in arts at Merichal College in 1658 and studied at Valence in France. He became doctor of Physic of Trinity College, Dublin and in 1677 incorporated in absentia MD at Oxford. Dun was appointed physician to the state and to James, Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and elected one of 14 Fellows of the Irish College of Physicians. He was elected president of the College from 1681 to 1687. In 1683, he was one of the founding members of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Dun supported the study of Anatomy and arranged dissections of human bodies. He became one of the leading physicians in Dublin. In 1688, he supported the Willamite side and fled the country until 1689 when he was appointed physician to King Williams army. He was reelected president of the Irish College of Physicians in 1690, 1692, 1696, 1698 and 1706. Dun was married in 1694 and knighted in 1696. In 1705, he was appointed physician to the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. Dun died in 1713 after a short illness. (Davis Coakley, “Dun, Sir Patrick (16421713)”, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).