David Smyth Torrens: physiologist and horologist.

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This paper1 examines the life and career of a man who rose from humble origins to achieve unusual eminence in two widely different fields. David Smyth Torrens was Professor of Physiology and the King's Professor of the Institutes of Medicine at Trinity for more than thirty years (1936-67) — a celebrated figure in the world of university medicine, mainly as a teacher and administrator. He was, however, also a giant of the world of horology, acknowledged by his peers as one of the greatest contemporary horological scholars, owner of perhaps one of the finest contemporary private horological libraries ever assembled, and compiler of an even more remarkable collection of horological tools. Yet this unchallenged reputation cloaked a man of strange antinomies of character — lonely, modest, difficult and most cripplingly shy. He performed great private acts of kindness yet expected no thanks; he rarely admonished, still less threatened, yet was held in trepidation by his students; he sought neither recognition nor praise and seldom gave any yet he held generally charitable and sympathetic views. He preferred to listen than to talk, was a notoriously difficult conversationalist and eschewed almost completely hedonistic or gregarious pursuits, yet despite everything he had an extraordinary following amongst some of the staff and students at Trinity. In medicine he devoted his energies to teaching and administration, and his research achieve ments were negligible: indeed he showed little interest either in pursuing knowledge in physiology or in encouraging others to do so. Even his undisputed international reputation in horology is at first glance difficult to understand since his publications were few and generally slight in length. It is, however, now abundantly clear that his untimely death a few months after retirement deprived the horological world of a unique scholarship of the written reflections on a lifetime of research and reading which would have produced an opus embodying his extraordinary abilities. In this paper we try also to resolve these paradoxes though some must remain at least for the moment unexplained.