John Stearne (physician)

John Stearne or Sterne (1624–1669) was an Irish academic, founder of the Irish College of Physicians.

He was born on 26 November 1624 at Ardbraccan, the episcopal palace of his grand-uncle, James Ussher, at that point bishop of Meath. His father John Stearne of Cambridge, who settled in County Down and married Mabel Bermingham, a niece of Ussher, was remote relation of Archbishop Richard Sterne.

Stearne entered Trinity College, Dublin at the age of 15 in 1639, and obtained a scholarship in 1641. On the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Stearne left for England, and in 1643 went to Cambridge, where he studied medicine at Sidney Sussex College, and collected material for his first work, Animi Medela. He remained at Cambridge about seven years, and then spent some time at Oxford, where he was welcomed by Seth Ward, then fellow of Wadham College. He had been elected a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin in 1643, a position from which he was ejected by order of the Rump Parliament. On his return to Ireland in 1651 he was restored to his fellowship by Henry Cromwell, with whom he was on good terms, and to whom he dedicated one of his books.

In 1656 Stearne was appointed the first Hebrew lecturer in Trinity College, Dublin, receiving the degree of M.D. in 1658, and that of LL.D. in 1660. In 1659 he resigned his fellowship; but was appointed to a senior fellowship in 1660, after the Restoration, receiving a dispensation from the statutes of the university respecting celibacy. He became in the same year professor of law. During his tenure of these various offices, Stearne practised as a physician in Dublin, obtaining special permission to reside outside the walls of the college.

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