Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/36

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Fayrer
16
Fayrer

shipman of the Thames in the new West Indian mail steam-packet service. In 1843 he accompanied his father to Bermuda, where an outbreak of yellow fever inclined him to the profession of medicine. Entering the Charing Cross Hospital in October 1844, where his fellow pupils included (Sir) William Guyer Hunter [q. v. Suppl. II] and Thomas Henry Huxley, he was appointed at the end of his second year house surgeon at the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital. In July 1847 he was admitted M.R.C.S. England, becoming F.R.C.S. in 1878. On 4 Aug. 1847 he received a commission in the royal naval medical service, but soon resigned it to travel with Lord Mount-Edgcumbe through France, Germany, and Italy. While at Palermo the Sicilian revolution broke out, and Fayrer, with his friend Dr. Valentine Mott, son of the well-known American surgeon, obtained his first experience of gunshot wounds. At Rome, where he arrived in April 1848, he studied at the university, and in 1849 obtained there the degree of M.D.

On 29 June 1850 Fayrer left England for Calcutta, to become assistant surgeon in Bengal. His connection with the Indian medical service lasted for forty-five years. On the outward voyage Fayrer had medical charge of a batch of recruits who proved insubordinate; but when the commanding officer handed them over to Fayrer, he promptly put the ringleader in irons and restored quiet. Arriving at Fort William on 9 Oct. 1850, he spent two years at Chinsura, Cherrapunji in the Khasi Hills, and Dacca. His successful service as a field assistant-surgeon with the Burma field force in the Pegu war of 1852 led Lord Dalhousie to appoint him, in July 1853, residency surgeon at Lucknow.

At Lucknow he received on 8 Sept. 1854 the additional appointment of honorary assistant resident, involving political duties. On 20 March 1856 he was appointed civil surgeon of Lucknow and superintendent of charitable institutions. On the annexation of Oudh, Fayrer was placed in charge of the deposed king's stud of horses, elephants, camels, and wild animals.

During the Mutiny Fayrer's house was used both as hospital and fortress, and he himself played a prominent part through the siege from 30 June until the final relief on 17 Nov. 1857 (cf. his Recollections). In March 1858 he left for England on furlough, and studying in Edinburgh, was admitted M.D. in March 1859. On 29 April, on returning to India, he became professor of surgery at the Medical College, Calcutta. In January 1867 he was made president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which he had joined in January 1861, and in that capacity proposed a scheme for a Zoological society and gardens in Calcutta, which was finally carried out in 1875, when the gardens were opened by King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales.

In 1868 he was made C.S.I., and in 1869 surgeon in Calcutta to Lord Mayo, the new viceroy. On 1 Jan. 1870 he accompanied the Duke of Edinburgh on his travels through N.W. India. Owing to failing health he came home in March 1872. On his arrival he was elected F.R.C.P. London, and with (Sir) Lauder Brunton resumed his important researches on snake venoms which he had begun in India in 1867 and which he embodied in a great treatise, published in 1872. He joined the medical board of the India ofiice in Feb. 1873 and was made president on 8 Dec., when he retired from the active list of the Indian army as a deputy surgeon-general. He continued president at the India office till January 1895, when he retired with the rank of surgeon-general and was awarded a good service pension in addition to his super-annuation allowance.

Meanwhile, in 1875 Fayrer was selected to accompany Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, on his tour through India. The expedition left Brindisi on 16 October and returned to Portsmouth on 5 May 1876. On 7 March 1876, at Allahabad, Fayrer was made K.C.S.I. On his return he was gazetted honorary physician to the prince. With the prince he formed a cordial intimacy which lasted for life. He privately printed in 1876 'Notes' on the two royal visits to India.

On 19 April 1877 he was elected F.R.S., and joined the council in 1895. He was made honorary LL.D. of Edinburgh (July 1878) and of St. Andrews (1890). In 1879, as president of the Epidemiological Society, he gave an address on 'The Progress of Epidemiology in India' (1880). In 1881 he delivered the Lettsomian lecture before the Medical Society of London on 'Tropical Diseases' (published with papers on like subjects in that year), and in 1882 the Croonian lectures of the Royal College of Physicians on 'The Climate and some of the Fevers of India' (1882). He represented the government of India at the intercolonial congress at Amsterdam (with Dr. T. R. Lewis), and at the international sanitary congress at Rome (May-June 1885). He also represented both the Royal College of Physicians of London and