Joseph Fayrer

Sir Joseph Fayrer, 1st Baronet FRS FRSE FRCS FRCP KCSI LLD (6 December 1824 – 21 May 1907) was an English physician noted for his writings on medicine, particularly the treatment of snakebite, in India.

The second son of Robert John Fayrer (1788–1869), a Commander in the Royal Navy and wife Agnes Wilkinson (d. 1861) he was born at Plymouth, Devon. Fayrer's father was in charge of steamships after his retirement from the navy. The family lived for a time at Haverbrack, Westmorland where Joseph became acquainted with William Wordsworth, Hartley Coleridge and John Wilson. Joseph studied some engineering in 1840 and joined as a midshipman and in 1843 he travelled with his father to Bermuda. An outbreak of yellow fever made him interested in medicine. He joined to study medicine at Charing Cross Hospital, London in 1844 and his fellow students included William Guyer Hunter and Thomas Henry Huxley. He became a house surgeon at Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital in his second year and became MRCS in 1847. He was in 1847 appointed medical officer of HMS Victory. He then resigned his commission and travelled around Europe along with Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, in the course of which he saw fighting at Palermo and Rome. He then resumed his study of medicine at Rome and received an MD in 1849.

Appointed an assistant surgeon in the Indian Medical Service of Bengal in 1850, he was posted at Chinsura, Cherrapunji and Dacca. He saw action as a field surgeon during the Burmese campaign of 1852. For his service, Lord Dalhousie made him political assistant and Residency surgeon at Lucknow in 1853. He married Bethia Mary, daughter of Brigadier General Andrew Spens at Lucknow, on 4 October 1855. During the Indian Mutiny, his home in Lucknow became a hospital as well as a fortress. It was at his home that Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence died. His wife and child survived and they were relieved on 17 November 1857. He left India on furlough in 1858 and obtained an MD from the University of Edinburgh Medical School in March 1859. Returning to India in 1859, he became professor of surgery at the Medical College of Calcutta, and was briefly a personal surgeon to Lord Mayo in 1869 and when the Prince of Wales made his tour in India he was appointed to accompany him as physician. He was later appointed Physician Extraordinary to King Edward VII in 1901. Returning to England in 1872, he acted as president of the Medical Board of the India office from 1874 to 1895, president of the Epidemiological Society for 1879-1881 and on 7 February 1896 he was created a baronet.

...
Wikipedia