Alfred Henry McClintock

Alfred Henry McClintock was educated under the surgeon Bunker at Louth Infirmary in Cork, then went to Dublin where he entered the Park Street School of Medicine. He became a licentiate in 1842, 1844 member of Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and that year received his doctorate at the University of Glasgow. He subsequently soon left for Paris, where he studied for half a year before returning to his native country. On the advice of his teacher, Charles Johnson (1795-1866), then director of the Rotunda Lying-in Hospital in Dublin, concentrated his efforts in obstetrics and gynaecology. In the following years he became an assistant to Johnson in the hospital, and with his colleague Dr. Samuel Little Hardy (1815-1868) published a report on the hospital, Practical observations on midwifery . . .

In 1851 McClintock became a Licentiate of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians (Ireland). From 1854 to 1861 he held the position of head physician at Rotunda Lying-in Hospital. The clinical experiences gained here were the foundation for his important work Clinical memoirs on diseases of women. Occasioned by the Sydenham Society, he published a new edition of William Smellie’s (1697-1763) Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery. The edition contained historical-critical comments and some elucidating extensions, as well as a description of the life of Smellie.

During the assembly of the British Medical Association in Edinburgh he was made honorary doctor of law at the University of Edinburgh, and later was made magister of obstetrics at the University of Dublin. In 1848 he married Fanny Cuppage. He died of apoplexy in 1881.

• Practical observations on midwifery, and the disease incidental to puerperal state. With Samuel Little Hardy (1815-1868).
  Dublin, Hodges and Smith, 1848. Printed by M. H, Gill. 368 pages.
• Clinical memoirs on diseases of women. Dublin : Fannin, 1863.
• William Smellie:
  Treatise on the theory and practice of midwifery. Edited with annotations by Alfred H. McClintock. 3 volumes; London, The New Sydenham Society, 1876-1878.
  
  Biographical:
• August Hirsch, publisher:
  Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker.
  2nd edition, Berlin, Urban & Schwarzenberg. 1929. First published in 6 volumes 1884-1888. 3rd edition, München 1962.