1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fayrer, Sir Joseph

FAYRER, SIR JOSEPH, Bart. (1824–1907), English physician, was born at Plymouth on the 6th of December 1824. After studying medicine at Charing Cross hospital, London, he was in 1847 appointed medical officer of H.M.S. “Victory,” and soon afterwards accompanied the 3rd Lord Mount-Edgcumbe on a tour through Europe, in the course of which he saw fighting at Palmero and Rome. Appointed an assistant surgeon in Bengal in 1850, he went through the Burmese campaign of 1852 and was political assistant and Residency surgeon at Lucknow during the Mutiny. From 1859 to 1872 he was professor of surgery at the Medical College of Calcutta, and when the prince of Wales made his tour in India he was appointed to accompany him as physician. Returning from India, he acted as president of the Medical Board of the India office from 1874 to 1895, and in 1896 he was created a baronet. Sir Joseph Fayrer, who became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1877, wrote much on subjects connected with the practice of medicine in India, and was especially known for his studies on the poisonous snakes of that country and on the physiological effects produced by their virus (Thanatophidia of India, 1872). In 1900 appeared his Recollections of my Life. He died at Falmouth on the 21st of May 1907.