William Stokes (physician)

William Stokes (1804–1878) physician portrait enhanced

William Stokes (1804–1878) was an Irish physician.

Stokes was an influential Irish physician, author, and teacher, renowned for his pioneering clinical work in cardiopulmonary medicine and for championing bedside teaching.

He served as Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College Dublin and senior physician at the Meath Hospital, Dublin. Alongside John Cheyne (1777–1836), he is immortalised in the description of Cheyne–Stokes respiration, and with Robert Adams (1791-1875) to Stokes–Adams syndrome and the Stokes Law in thoracic percussion.

Stokes promoted systematic clinical observation, integrating auscultation and percussion in cardiopulmonary diagnosis, and emphasized ward-based learning as the foundation of medical education.

He was the son of Whitley Stokes (1763–1845), a noted physician and educator, and carried forward a legacy of medical advancement in Ireland. Stokes was a passionate educator who emphasized teaching at the patient’s bedside over didactic classroom learning. He helped institutionalize ward-based clinical training as the core of Irish and British medical education.

William Stokes recorded and published the autopsy of Abraham Colles (1773-1843) performed by Robert William Smith as ‘Observations on the Case of the Late Abraham Colles‘. Colles requested that Smith be called upon to perform his own autopsy.

Biography
  • Born in Dublin on 1 October 1804.
  • 1820s – Medical studies at Trinity College Dublin and University of Edinburgh
  • 1825 – MD, University of Edinburgh Medical School; Published An Introduction to the Use of the Stethoscope – first English manual on the subject
  • 1826-1875 Physician to Meath Hospital, Dublin
  • 1836-1842 Editor of the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science along with Robert Graves
  • 1837 – Published A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest
  • 1838 – Co-founded the Pathological Society of Dublin along with Smith, Colles, Graves, and Corrigan
  • 1839 – Father to Sir William Stokes (1839-1900)
  • 1845 – Appointed by the Queen as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Dublin
  • 1854 – Published The Diseases of the Heart and Aorta, a landmark in cardiology
  • 1860 – Appointed Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College Dublin
  • 1861 – Physician to the Queen in Ireland
  • 1867 – President of the British Medical Association
  • 1874 – President of the Irish Academy
  • 1875 – On commendation by the English ambassador, decorated by Emperor Wilhelm I with the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite for contributions to medicine
  • 1878 – Died January 10 in Howth, near Dublin
Medical Eponyms
Stokes-Adams syndrome (1846)

Adams-Stokes syndrome refers to sudden, transient episodes of syncope due to intermittent high-grade atrioventricular (AV) block or ventricular standstill, usually caused by complete heart block. The episodes are marked by sudden loss of consciousness without warning, often followed by spontaneous recovery. They may also be associated with seizure-like activity due to cerebral hypoperfusion.

1827 – Robert Adams (1791–1875) described attacks of sudden syncope with slow pulse in the Dublin Hospital Reports, associating them with underlying cardiac disease.

1846 – Stokes published Observations of some cases of permanently slow pulse in the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science. He reviewed five cases of sudden fainting spells with very slow (often regular) pulse rates (sometimes as low as 10–25/min); occasional convulsions; and recovery, often with flushing as heart rhythm resumes. Stokes explicitly acknowledged Adams’s earlier work and framed his own as building on that foundation

Mr Adams has recorded a case of permanently slow pulse, in which the patient suffered from repeated cerebral attacks of an apoplectic nature, though not followed by paralysis The attention of subsequent writers on diseases of the heart, has not been sufficiently directed to this case, which is an example of a very curious and, as there is reason to believe, special combination of symptoms The following cases will still further elucidate a subject on which there is but little information extant

The observations are published with the view of drawing the attention of the Profession to a combination of cerebral and cardiac phenomena, of which our knowledge is still imperfect

Stokes 1846

Cheyne-Stokes respiration (1854)

Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR) is a form of central periodic breathing marked by cyclic crescendo-decrescendo tidal volumes interspersed with central apnoea or hypopnoea.

Though first reported by John Cheyne in 1818, Stokes described it in detail in 1854 and linked it with heart disease.

1818 – In Dublin Hospital Reports, John Cheyne (1777–1836) documented a patient with apoplexy and fatty heart degeneration. He observed a peculiar periodic breathing pattern:

The only peculiarity in the last days of his illness, which lasted nine days, was in the state of the respiration: for several days his breathing was irregular; it would entirely cease for a quarter of a minute, then it would become perceptible, though very low, then by degrees it became heaving and quick, and then it would gradually cease again: this revolution in the state of his breathing occupied about a minute, during which there were about thirty acts of respiration.

Cheyne 1818

Cheyne also notes a second patient with a similar pattern but without post-mortem verification, so the report focuses on the first, where autopsy revealed cardiac fatty degeneration.

1854 – Stokes in The Diseases of the Heart and Aorta, Stokes described this pattern again in the context of heart failure and CNS depression.

…the peculiar rhythmical type of respiration, in which a series of gradually increasing respirations is succeeded by a series of gradually diminishing ones, and this again by a pause, which is followed by a renewal of the respiratory acts in the same order.

Stokes, 1854

Stokes provided a broader and more physiologically reasoned description. He observed the same periodic respiratory pattern and connected it with advanced heart failure and neurological disease, cementing its pathophysiological basis and linking the two names.

Key Medical Contributions
Percussion in Lung Disease (1837)

Stokes was a key figure in promoting percussion and auscultation as essential diagnostic tools in thoracic medicine. In his landmark A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest (1837), Stokes emphasized the clinical integration of percussion findings with the patient’s history, symptoms, and other physical signs.

  • Diagnostic Integration: Stokes avoided rigid diagnostic formulas, instead advocating for percussion as part of a holistic clinical assessment. He stressed that resonance, dullness, or tympany must be interpreted in context—taking into account the disease stage and location.
  • Percussion in Pneumonia: He described how dullness with bronchial breathing indicated consolidation, especially in lobar pneumonia, and how shifting percussion notes could suggest early abscess formation or resolution.
  • Early Tuberculosis: He noted patchy dullness over the clavicles and apices as suggestive of phthisis in its earliest stages, offering crucial diagnostic sensitivity before radiography.
  • Educational Emphasis: Stokes trained students at the bedside, demonstrating percussion over the full course of disease, and correlating sounds with pathology—thus shaping bedside teaching in clinical medicine.
Controversies

Note: William Stokes (physician)(1804–1878) – not to be confused with Sir William Stokes (surgeon) (1838-1900)…his son

My father left me but one legacy, the blessed gift of rising early

William Stokes
Major Publications
References

Biography

Eponymous terms

Cheyne-Stokes

Stoked-Adams

Eponym

the person behind the name

more eponyms…

BA MA (Oxon) MBChB (Edin) FACEM FFSEM. Emergency physician, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Passion for rugby; medical history; medical education; and asynchronous learning #FOAMed evangelist. Co-founder and CTO of Life in the Fast lane | Eponyms | Books |

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