thumb|Portrait, 1900

Sir Joseph Fayrer, 1st Baronet (6 December 1824 – 21 May 1907) was a British physician who served as Surgeon General in India. He is noted for his writings on medicine, work on public health and his studies particularly on the treatment of snakebite, in India. He was also involved in official investigation on cholera, in which he did not accept the idea, proposed by Robert Koch, of germs as the cause of cholera.

Early life

thumb|Cover of his book on venomous snakes|alt=|298x298px

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. 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, Fayrer held a position against the germ theory of cholera which had led to the idea of quarantine (which he considered as evil) and preferred the idea that disease was restricted to particular locations, with factors such as air, water, and weather being responsible.

thumb|left|Fayrer's home in [[Lucknow (after 1857)]]

He was President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1867 and proposed a scheme for a zoological garden in Calcutta. This was finally opened by the Prince of Wales in 1875. He took considerable interest in the wild animals and wrote a book on the tiger and procured living specimens of the pygmy hogs for the Zoological Society of London. He 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 venom (Thanatophidia of India, 1872). and promoted to Knight Commander (KCSI) in 1876. In 1876 Fayrer was incharge of the health of the Prince of Wales on his visit to India.

Family

On 4 October 1855, he married Bethia Mary Spens. They had six sons and two daughters.

He was succeeded as second baronet by Sir Joseph Fayrer, 2nd Baronet.

His daughter Bethia Marion Fayrer (1857-1892) married William Dobrees Herries and is buried in Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Select Bibliography

  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1866). "Clinical surgery in India", John Churchill, London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1872). "The Thanatophidia of India: Being a Description of the Venomous Snakes of the Indian Peninsula, with an Account of the Influence of Their Poison on Life and a Series of Experiments", pub. J. & A. Churchill, London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1873). "Clinical and pathological observations in India", pub. J. & A. Churchill, London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1873). "European child-life in Bengal", pub. J. & A. Churchill, London.
  • Brunton, T. Lauder, Sir & Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1873) "On the nature and physiological action of the poison of Naja tripudians and other Indian venomous snakes" , in Proceedings of the Royal Society, No 145 (1873).
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1875). "The royal tiger of Bengal, his life and death", pub. J. & A. Churchill, London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1888). 's The natural history and epidemiology of cholera : being the annual oration of the Medical Society of London, May 7, 1888, pub. J. & A. Churchill, London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1894). "On preservation of health in India", Macmillan & Co., London.
  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir (1900). "Recollections of my life", pub. William Blackwood & sons, London.

Fayrer appears as a supporting character in the 1977 Hindi film "Shatranj Ke Khilari", directed by Satyajit Ray and based on the short story of the same name by Munshi Premchand. In the film, he is seen having a discussion with Sir James Outram about the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company. He is played by Indian theatre director and teacher Barry John.

References

  • Huxley correspondence archive
  • Joseph Fayrer's The natural history and epidemiology of cholera (London, 1888)
  • Recollections of my life (1900)
  • The Thanatophidia of India (1872)
  • The royal tiger of Bengal, his life and death (1875)