Cormac Mac Duinnshléibhe (anglicized as Cormac MacDonlevy, fl. c. 1460.) was an Irish physician and scribe. He was an influential medieval Irish physician and medical scholar of the Arabian school and was educated at universities in Continental Europe.
He is famed for advancing Irish mediaeval medical practice by translating, for the first time, seminal Continental European medical texts from Latin to the vernacular. His translations provided the maojrity of Irish physicians, who were exclusively Irish-speaking and normally hereditarilySusan Wilkinson, "Early Medical Education in Ireland", Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, Vol. 6, No. 3 (November 2008). See, also, A. Nic Donnchadha, "Medical Writing in Irish", in 2000 Years of Irish Medicine, J.B. Lyons, ed., Dublin, Eirinn Health Care Publications 2000, Pgs. 217-220., with their first access to refer to those texts.
Background Cormac was descended from the Donlevy, who were the last ruling dynasty of the over-kingdom of Ulaid. They migrated to the kingdom of Tyrconnell and became hereditary chief physicians to its rulers, the Ó Domhnaill clan.Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 35 MacCarwell - Maltby (Sidney Lee Ed.). (1893) New York: MacMillan & Co., p. 52Annals of the Four Masters: 1395 A.D., 1586 A.D."
He held a bachelor of physic although the medical school or university from which he graduated is unknown.
Works He was notable for being a prolific translator, creating and consolidating Irish medical, anatomical, pharmaceutical and botanical terms.
In 1459, in Cloyne, County Cork, he translated De Dosibus Medicarum by Walter de Agilon.
In or about 1470, Cormac MacDonlevy, M.B.The degree is noted in British Library MS 333, fol. 113v25, 1459AD, which manuscript copy of the Irish De dosibus was later scribed than the Royal Irish Academy copy of the same appearing in reference below. commenced the twelve-year task of first translating the French physician Bernard of Gordon's extensive medical work, the Lilium medicineDublin Royal Irish Academy, MS 443 (24 p 14), pp 1–327, undated (Cormac's translation of this work, though, was completed by 1482, which is the date appearing on a later scribed copy of the Irish Lilium, which copy is housed as Egerton MS 89, fols. 13ra1-192vb13 at the British Library.) (1320), from Latin to Irish.A. Nic Donnchadha, ibid, at page 218 at paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 under the subtitle "Medical texts in Irish". Thereafter, as it had some 150 years earlier with the Continental European medical community, the monumental Lilium medicine (English: "Lily of Medicine") achieved great popularity among the medical community of the Celtic nations. Excerpts were included in the Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum by Standish Hayes O'Grady and Robin Flower.
Cormac, also, first translated Gordon's De pronosticisDublin Royal Irish Academy, MS 439 (3C19), fols. 241–288, undated (c. 1295) and Gaulteris Agilon's De dosibusBritish Library Harley MS 546, fols. 1r-11r (c. 1250) from Latin into Irish. Gaulteris' De dosibus, a pharmaceutical tract and well-used historical source, provides a concise introduction to the basic principles and operations of mediaeval European pharmacy. Cormac too first translated from Latin to Irish the French physician and surgeon Guy de Chauliac's Chirurgia magna, a major surgical textNational Library of Ireland, MSG 453, fols. 110-27, undated (c. 1363), as well as other major Continental European medical texts.A. Nic Donnchadha, ibid, at page 218 at paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 under the subtitle "Medical texts in Irish".
He also translated Gordon's De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum (1299).
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