William Stokes was an Irish physician, who was Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College Dublin. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh Medical School with an MD in 1825 later returning the practice in Dublin at Meath Hospital. He went on to create two important works on cardiac and pulmonary diseases – A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest (1837) and The Diseases of the Heart and Aorta (1854) – as well as one of the first treatises on the use of the stethoscope. He emphasised the importance of clinical examination in forming diagnoses, and of ward-based learning for students of medicine.

The Meath Hospital was a general hospital in the Earl of Meath's Liberty in Dublin, Ireland. It was absorbed into the Tallaght Hospital in June 1998.