JOSEPH GRIFFITHS SWAYNE   was   born on   October 18th,   1819 ,   and was the second son of Mr. John   Champney   Swayne, (a founder member of Medical Reading Society) Senior Consulting   Accoucheur   to the Bristol Lying-in Institution and Lecturer on   Midwifery   at the   Bristol   Medical   School , and grandson   of   the Rev. George Swayne, Vicar of   Puckle   Church, Gloucestershire. His mother was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Griffiths, at that time a leading physician in   Bristol . On leaving school he was apprenticed to his father, and was also entered   (1837)   as a pupil at the   Bristol   Medical   School   and Royal Infirmary, at the latter   as   the pupil of   Mr.   Richard Lowe, one of the Honorary Surgeons. He entered the then newly formed University of London, and, on passing the Intermediate Examination in Medicine,   obiained   honours in Anatomy and Physiology, being among   tho   first three in those combined subjects.

    At   the completion of his term in Bristol he entered at Guy's Hospital, and in   1841   obtained the diplomas of M.R.C.S. and L.S.A., he also worked in Paris, and in 1843 graduated M.B. in the University of London, gaining the gold medal in Obstetric Medicine, being equal for the gold medal in Medicine with Sir Alfred Baring   Jarrod   and obtaining first-class honours in Surgery. He graduated M.D. in   1846.   For a few years he practised in partnership with his father, and Mr.   S.   H. Swayne, his younger brother. For a short time he was Demonstrator and then Lecturer on Anatomy at the   Bristol   Medical   School , and in 1845   succeeded his father as Lecturer on Midwifery, which post he held until   1895.

    A fact not generally known is that he was engaged   for   some time on a Manual of Anatomy, the illustrations for which he etched on copper from his own dissections. The publication of his   work   was, however, forestalled by Ellis's dissections, and as, owing to the liberality with which it was illustrated, his own work would only have been produced at a much higher price, he never completed it.

    In   1845   he worked vigorously during the cholera epidemic then raging in Bristol in endeavouring to discover the primary cause   of   the disease, and described   a   micro-organism which was believed by many (Mr. Francis Fowler, in an article in the British M edical   Joumal ,   among the number) to have anticipated Koch's discovery of the comma bacillus. He did not, however, himself claim that the micro-organism he described was the primary cause, but noted its constant appearance in the   dejecta of true cholera cases, and   also in   water in places where the epidemic was severe.   ( see   comment below)   In the pursuit of this research, on the subsidence of the   Bristol   outbreak, he proceeded to Bridgwater, and while there he himself contracted the disease but fortunately in a mild form.

    In   1856   he brought out “0bstetric Aphorisms for the use of Students,” a work which attained very rapidly wide popularity, and for four decades held the field as a practical text-book for students of midwifery. It was translated into several European and two Oriental languages, and reached its twentieth edition in   1894.   His association with his father led to his adoption of midwifery as a speciality, and in   1853   he was appointed Physician   Accoucheur   to the   Bristol General   Hospital . This was, we believe, the first appointment of the kind made outside the metropolis. His early success, however, was but small, a usual result of the labours of pioneers, added to which his health, undermined by   an   attack of enteric fever, broke down,   and   he temporarily lost his eyesight. So in order to regain his health, he took, in   1858,   the long sea voyage to   New Zealand , and returned after the lapse of   a   year with restored health and to find   himself   at the commencement of   a   long career of success.

    He was singularly fortunate in practice. We have heard him say that since his student days, when dissection, post-mortem work, and practical midwifery were carried on simultaneously, he had never lost a case. Although   Semmelweiss   had not yet given the result of his observations to the world, the period alluded to being before   1843,   Dr. Swayne suspected that this practice had some causal relation to the high mortality from septic infection after labour, and very early in his career took care not to allow these incompatible pursuits to clash, and always attributed his personal immunity from the evil results   of this pernicious practice to the fact that he   was   always   very   careful about washing his hands. We have also heard him remark that it was not   a   good practice for either surgeons or   accoucheurs   to wear either their beards or hair long, as he had observed that septic poisoning was more common in the patients of those who did so. As we might expect from the foregoing, when the application of Lister’s discoveries to midwifery was advocated, he at once, although an old man, adopted the antiseptic technique, which, although looked upon by many as a fad, in reality simply involved the further application of ideas of his own deduced from practical   observation   ;   this he did the more readily owing to his complete absence of bias in favour of old methods simply on the grounds of their antiquity.

    The same absence of bias led to his continued use of old methods, the utility of which his own observation confirmed. For example,   venesection , which in his youth was freely practised, went out of fashion, but he never ceased his advocacy of it in cases of   eclampsia , and he lived long enough to see the practice again one of the recognised methods of treatment in this affection. His lectures were always well thought out, clear, scholarly and not   overweighted   with conflicting evidence; he was always able to realise the difficulties of the students, and he impressed points of practical importance on their memory by illustrations drawn from his own enormous experience.

    He resigned the post of Professor of Midwifery in   University   College , to which he was appointed on the amalgamation of the College and the   Bristol   Medical   School , in 1895. He was a Fellow and Past Vice-President of the Obstetrical Society of London, a Fellow of the British Gynaecological Society and also of the Gynaecological Society of Boston, U.S.A. He was President of the Section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1894.

    In his private life he was a man of great simplicity and   simpleness   of mind; his personal habits were most abstemious; he was practically a teetotaller, although well able to appreciate good wine;   and until he was over eighty years old never took more than two meals a day. He was an exceptionally early riser, being seldom in bed after   five a.m.   in summer and   six a.m. in winter. His temperate habits no doubt largely   contributed to his powerful constitution and prolonged physical powers. Until quite late in life he was a good boxer and a great walker, while he kept up gymnastic exercises until he was over seventy. In his youth he was an exceptionally good all round athlete, a good horseman and rifle shot, pulled a good oar, and was a powerful swimmer.

Comment: these were subsequently shown to be       uredospores   , rather than the cause of cholera - s ee     http://www.johnpowell.net/jsmrs/index.html   ,   which also documents his interest in anaesthesia; he proposed 4 of the 8 books on anaesthesia bought by the Medical Reading Society between 1847 and 1858.

This obituary is from the International Journal of Obstetrics. His obituary in the BMJ can be found at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2513700/pdf/brmedj08260-0050e.pdf