Donovan, Michael

by Helen Andrews

Donovan, Michael (1790–1876), chemist and pharmacist, was born in Kilmacow, Co. Kilkenny, son of John Donovan. He received his diploma (1811) from Apothecaries' Hall, Dublin, and opened an apothecary's shop in Townsend St. He was a founder member (1812) of the Kirwanian Chemical and Natural History Society of Dublin and its treasurer and secretary for several years; the society's minutes, in his handwriting, are preserved in the library of the RIA (MS 12 B2 16). He subsequently wrote a useful Biographical account of the late Richard Kirwan (RIA. Proc., iv, app. viii (1850), pp lxxi–cxviii). In 1813 he won a prize from the RIA for the best essay, ‘The effects of the discovery of galvanism’, which was later incorporated into his Essay on the origin, progress, and present state of galvanism (1816); in 1828 he was elected MRIA.

Appointed chemist (1820) to Apothecaries' Hall for the examination of pharmaceutical preparations prior to their sale, he was its first professor of chemistry, pharmacy, and materia medica (1820–c.1831); an able teacher, he subsequently lectured in the same subjects (1827) on the founding of the Richmond Hospital school, Dublin. In opposition to many of his fellow apothecaries, Donovan became a leading member of the Pharmaceutical Society, which argued that the proper role of apothecaries was the development of scientific pharmacy and the compounding and sale of prescriptions, rather than acting as medical practitioners. Appointed superintendent of the laboratory (1828) and asked to draft a code of by-laws for Apothecaries' Hall, he became a member, examiner, and director of the Hall (1828) in order to fight more effectively for the reorganisation of the profession and the reconciliation of contending parties. Elected governor (1829), he initiated a prize for the best essay on a subject relevant to the science of an apothecary, proposed the creation of a botanic garden, and installed a steam engine in the laboratory for powdering drugs. He wrote Reflections on the present state of the profession of pharmacy in Ireland (1829), which identified inadequacies and called for amendments in the apothecaries act of 1791. In bitter contention with his colleagues about proposed reform, he resigned as director and governor (January 1830) before completing his year in office, and was subsequently ousted from his professorial posts. He founded and was president of the Committee of Apothecaries of Ireland and travelled to London in 1838 (as he had in 1829) to help in the drafting of a bill for the regulation of medical practice, and also sought, without success, the founding of an Irish college of pharmacy.

Considered one of Dublin's leading scientists, he invented several pharmaceutical preparations including Syrupus cinchonae, but is most famous for ‘Donovan's solution’ of arsenic and iodide of mercury (Liquor arsenici et hydrargyri hydriodatis), which was prescribed for the treatment of skin and venereal disease and is known to chemists throughout the world. First published in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science (xvi (1840), 277–82), it was introduced into the last Pharmacopoeia of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland (‘Dublin pharmacopoeia’) (1850), which he helped to prepare, and in which a system of weights and measures, previously advocated by Donovan, was adopted. He founded and edited the Annals of Pharmacy and Materia Medica (1829–30); its earliest numbers contained important scientific observations but it lost support, possibly due to Donovan's repeated denunciation of the directors of Apothecaries' Hall.

A scientist of wide-ranging interests, chemist to the RDS, and a prominent member of the Dublin Philosophical Society, he published papers in several journals, including twenty-seven in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and others in the London Philosophical Magazine, the Dublin Philosophical Journal and Scientific Review, and the Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions. He contributed essays to the Cabinet cyclopaedia of natural philosophy (1830), edited by Dionysius Lardner (qv), on ‘Domestic economy’ (published separately 1842), and ‘A treatise on chemistry’ (published separately, 4th ed. 1845).

He retired (1870) from his practice at Donovan's Medical Hall, 11 Clare St., Dublin, one of the few remaining apothecaries who had confined himself to pharmacy. He continued his scholarly pursuits till 1875, when he published ‘On some further improvements of the comparable self-registering hygrometer’ (RIA Proc. (Science), xii (1875), 166–7).

Short, stocky, with serious demeanour, he was habitually absorbed in thought; his conversation was stiff and formal like his appearance, and in later life he always wore a skullcap. His portrait (artist unknown) hangs in Apothecaries' Hall, one of only eight hung between 1798 and 1992. P. J. McLaughlin (qv) compiled a list of many of his papers, which is held in the library of the RIA. He died 27 March 1876 at his home, 12 Lower Leeson St, Dublin, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. He may have been the ‘M. Donovan’ recorded in the Dublin Grant Book as having married (1825) Eleanor Graisberry.