Dead Interesting

Plastic Surgeon Dr Thomas Addis Emmett

THE next time you’re getting a bit of liposuction or thinking of covering up that tattoo of an ex, spare a few moments to remember the founder of plastic surgery, Dr Thomas Addis Emmett.

Thomas Addis Emmet was born in Charlottsville, Virginia, in the USA on the 29th May 1828 and is now buried in Glasnevin Cemetery and his was a family with a rich heritage of Irish nationalism.

His grandfather was also Thomas Addis Emmet, a member of the United Irishmen, and he was a grand-nephew of patriot Robert Emmet. His father was John Patten Emmet, Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica in the University of Virginia.

Emmet graduated from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1850 and moved to New York where, after many years’ service as an assistant, he became surgeon-in-chief of the Women’s Hospital in 1861, a post he held until 1872.

He was the author of The Principles and Practice of Gynaecology and is considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of plastic surgery.

He was well known as a cultured litterateur and an acknowledged leader of Irish opinion in America, as well as being a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory.

Emmet was also a collector and by the time of his death had amassed a valuable collection of Irish books, American prints, autographs and illustrated books.

He assisted Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa by contributing £100 per year to the old Fenian’s newspaper. He also supported the Irish Parliamentary Party and donated generously to their funds.

He was a supporter of the Easter Rising in 1916 and considered himself a friend of Pádraig Pearse.

Following his execution in 1803, mystery had always surrounded the final resting place of the remains of Robert Emmet. During the centenary year of Emmet’s failed rising in 1903, Dr Emmet travelled to Ireland to begin looking for the grave.

Many places were considered, including Bully’s Acre at Kilmainham, St Catherine’s, St Ann’s, St Michan’s, Glasnevin St Mobi and St Peter’s, Aungier Street.

Emmet examined all the possible sites but none could be proven to contain the body of his Grand Uncle and he returned to America with no answers to a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

One legend in Glasnevin cemetery is that the remains might lie in the grave of his loyal and faithful accomplice, Anne Devlin.

When Thomas Addis Emmet MD died in New York on the 1st March 1919, he was 91 years old. In his will he expressed his desire to be buried in Ireland;

“As I grow older my desire becomes stronger to rest finally in the land from which my family came.

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He set aside a sum of money to pay for his interment in Dublin and asked that his memorial

“be made from stone, preferably gneiss

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He was eventually buried in Glasnevin on the 15th September 1922 in the tower circle, close to the crypt containing the remains of Daniel O’Connell.

The epitaph on the monument over his grave describes him as a

“teacher, historian, publicist and biographer. Peerless patriot and devout catholic

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