Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crumpe, Samuel
CRUMPE, SAMUEL (1766–1796), Irish physician, was born in 1766. He resided in the city of Limerick, and possessed high literary and professional talents. The university of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of M.D., as recorded in this entry: ‘1788. Samuel Crumpe, Hibernus. De vitiis quibus humores corrumpi dicuntur, eorumque remediis.’ By the publication of ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Properties of Opium,’ London, 1793, and of ‘An Essay on the best Means of providing Employment for the People of Ireland,’ Dublin, 1793 (2nd ed. 1795), he gained no small celebrity; the latter work being honoured with a prize medal by the Royal Irish Academy and his admission as a member. The volume has justly been pronounced to be a really valuable publication. The principles which pervade it are sound; and those parts of it which have special reference to Ireland are distinguished by the absence of prejudice, and by their practical good sense. It is, in fact, a work which could not have failed to establish his reputation as a sensible and kind-hearted man, a true patriot, and a zealous philanthropist. German translations of both his works have been published. He died at Limerick 27 Jan. 1796, in his thirtieth year.
[Gent. Mag. (1796), lxvi. pt. i. 255; Biographie Universelle, x. 318; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; List of M.D.'s of Edinburgh University; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]