In the spring of 1781 he attended William Hunter's lectures in London, and received a stimulus to obstetrical studies, which determined him to settle in Dublin as an accoucheur.
i. of the ‘Transactions of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland’) a report of 10,387 cases, recounting in detail all points worthy of note, and forming one of the most valuable records in existence on the subject.
It was afterwards supplemented by his notes of 3,878 births in private practice, in which he had not lost one mother from protracted labour (see Collins, Sketch of Clarke).
He published several important papers in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,’ of which he was vice-president, among which may be mentioned ‘Remarks on the Causes and Cure of some Diseases of Infancy,’ vol.
Two letters of his to Richard Price, D.D., author of ‘A Treatise on Life Annuities,’ dealing with some causes of the excess of mortality of males above that of females, were printed in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1786, p. 349.