Francis Cruise

Francis Xavier Richard Cruise (3 December 1834 – 26 February 1912) was a 19th-century Irish surgeon and urologist best known for inventing an endoscope and using it successfully in surgery in 1865.

Life and work Cruise was born in Dublin and baptised 7 December 1834 at the Pro-Cathedral. His father was Dublin solicitor Francis Cruise (1795 – before 1859) and his mother was Eleanor Mary Brittain (1795–1877) from Cheshire in England. He was an uncle of Edward Cuthbert Butler. He attended both Belvedere College, where he was the first president of the Belvedere Union, and Clongowes Wood. His university education was at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1856, MD 1861).

His medical career saw him work at the Mater Hospital and teach at the Carmichael School of Medicine, as well as research and publish on genital irregularities, bladder diseases and dislocations. From 1884 to 1886 he served as the President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In 1906, he was knighted by the British government.