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.
His father was Dublin solicitor Francis Cruise (1795 – before 1859) and his mother was Eleanor Mary Brittain (1795–1877) from Cheshire in England.
[1][3] His medical career saw him work at the Mater Hospital[4] and teach at the Carmichael School of Medicine, as well as research and publish on genital irregularities, bladder diseases and dislocations.
[3] He also wrote about Thomas à Kempis and translated his On the Imitation of Christ,[4] and in 1905, Pope Pius X made him a Knight of St Gregory the Great.
He had married Mary Frances Power (1839–1910) of Dublin in 1859, the union resulting in six sons and three daughters.