O'Shaughnessy (Brooke), Sir William Brooke (1809–89), doctor and director general of telegraphs in India, was born October 1809 and christened 1 November 1809 in Limerick, son of Daniel O'Shaughnessy, merchant, and Sarah O'Shaughnessy (née Boswell). After graduating MD (1829) at Edinburgh, where he developed a wide range of scientific interests, he moved to London and taught forensic chemistry.
Responding to the appearance of the Asiatic cholera epidemic (1831) – a new disease in England – he studied the nature of the illness and presented his remarkable results to the Westminster Medical Society as ‘Proposal of a new method of treating the blue cholera epidemic by the injection of highly-oxygenised salts into the venous system’ (Lancet, i (1831), 366–71). He subsequently published ‘Experiments on the blood in cholera’ (Lancet, i (1831), 490) in what has been described as ‘one of the shortest and yet most significant letters ever written to the journal’ (Coakley, 151), and later wrote ‘The chemical pathology of the malignant cholera’, which he submitted to the central board of health (1832). He established that the diarrhoea of cholera led to dehydration, electrolyte depletion, acidosis, and nitrogen retention, and prescribed oral or intravenous replacement of deficient salt and water. His prescription was acted on by Dr Thomas A. Latta of Leith, Scotland, who published ‘Saline venous injection in cases of malignant cholera’ (Lancet, i (1832), 173–6, 208–9), demonstrating the effectiveness of the therapy, which an editorial in the same journal compared to ‘the workings of a miraculous and supernatural agent’ (Coakley, 153). Apart from pioneering a revolutionary life-saving remedy, O'Shaughnessy's originality lay in his prescription of appropriate treatment based on scientific observation and analysis, and also the promotion of chemical analysis as potentially useful in understanding physiological processes and disease. Interest in the treatment waned after the epidemic subsided – Latta died (1833) and O'Shaughnessy left for India – but his contribution was recognised in his election as FRS (1843), and his work remains the basis of rehydration therapy.
Barred from practising medicine in London by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, which refused to grant a licence to an outsider and obstructed his candidature for the chair of medical jurisprudence at London University, he joined the East India Company's medical service in Bengal as assistant surgeon (1833), and was subsequently promoted surgeon (1848) and surgeon major (1859). Appointed (1835) professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at the new Medical College, Calcutta, he was an enthusiastic teacher, deeply committed to introducing western education to Indian students. He studied the botany and chemistry of Indian herbs used in oriental medicine and introduced cannabis (Indian hemp) into western medicine. He investigated its therapeutic effects on animals and patients, and published remarkable results in the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal (1839) and subsequently in the Transactions of the Medical and Psychiatric Society of California (1842). Extolling its effectiveness as an anti-convulsant, he recommended it for treating several conditions, including tetanus, rheumatism, and epilepsy. His paper immediately attracted interest, and cannabis was quickly and widely prescribed in Europe and North America to treat a range of ailments from neuralgia to childbirth pain, bronchitis, and gonorrhoea.
In Ireland Michael Donovan (qv) published a paper, ‘On the physical and medicinal qualities of Indian hemp’ (Dubl. Jn. Med. Sc., xxvi (1845), 368–402), describing its introduction as the beginning of a new era in medicine, and referring to the debt of gratitude owed to O'Shaughnessy by the profession and the public. Subsequently replaced by newer medicines, cannabis remained on the British pharmacopoeia until 1932 and the American until 1941. O'Shaughnessy edited the Bengal pharmacopoeia (Calcutta, 1844), and published The Bengal dispensatory (London, 1842) and a Manual of medicine (Calcutta, 1841) which demonstrated great knowledge and gave one of the earliest comprehensive accounts of biochemistry. Other posts included physician to Lord Metcalfe (1785–1846), acting general governor of India; chemical examiner to the government (1840); scientific adviser to the deputy governor of Bengal (1844); and, when the East India Company started to mint its own coins, deputy assay master (1844) and assay master (1851), supervising the refining at the Calcutta mint.
O'Shaughnessy's wide-ranging interests included electrical science and applied technology, and he is most famous for introducing the electric telegraph into India. Familiar with developments in telegraphy in Europe and North America, in 1837 he experimented in communication by electric signals; selecting the deflection of the galvanometer needle system, he constructed, at his own expense, the first telegraph line in the East – a thirty-mile (48 km) circuit in the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta – and published his results in the Journal of the Asiatic Society (1839), knowing the potential value of the telegraph for the civil and military administration of India. However, it excited little official interest until Lord Dalhousie became governor general (1848) and commissioned O'Shaughnessy to build an electric telegraph to assist the navigation for the port of Calcutta. The success of the Calcutta Navigation Telegraph led to his appointment as director general of telegraphs (1852–60) with responsibility for constructing lines connecting Calcutta with Agra, Bombay, Madras, and Peshawar. O'Shaughnessy was sent to England to give evidence before the court of directors; he recruited sixty artificers and collected materials, and construction began in October 1853. By 1855 3,756 miles (6,045 km) of line had been erected and were in working order, and fifty-five telegraph offices had been opened. This extraordinary feat was achieved despite confrontation with mountain ranges, deserts, dense jungles, and wide unbridged rivers, as well as extreme variations of weather, violent thunderstorms, and the depredations of wild beasts. 51,533 private and 9,008 state messages were transmitted during the first year. From 1857 the Morse system was introduced and by 1858 the system of receiving by sound.
The value of the telegraph was readily appreciated during the Indian rebellion (1857) and possibly saved India for the British, for administrators throughout India speedily received news of the uprising, and forewarned, took appropriate action. O'Shaughnessy was in England during the rebellion and returned to India (December 1857) to find that many of his men had been murdered and much of the telegraph system destroyed. Undaunted, he began reconstruction immediately and new lines were erected, which extended 11,000 miles (17,700 km) by 1860 and were served by 150 offices in what was claimed to be the world's cheapest telegraph. He was knighted (1856) by Queen Victoria at Windsor castle, on the recommendation of Lord Dalhousie.
Author of several books including ones on poisoning and the electric telegraph, O'Shaughnessy published papers on medical, scientific, and engineering subjects in a variety of journals, including the Journals of the Asiatic Society. For many years he was secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; he was also elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Illness forced him to return to England (1860), and on his retirement (1861) he settled in Southsea, Hampshire, and took the name of Brooke by royal licence (1861) after the death of a relative of that name. He died 10 January 1889 at Southsea, where he was buried at the Highland Road cemetery. His first wife (m. c.1833) died in 1834; they had one child. He married secondly (1835) his cousin Margaret O'Shaughnessy from Clare, who predeceased him, and thirdly Julia Greenly (née Sabine).