Simon , Sir , John , 1816-1904 , Knight , sanitary reformer

Born, 1816; educated, Preparatory School, Pentonville, private school, Greenwich; apprenticed to Joseph Henry Green, Surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, 1833; Member, 1838 and Fellow, 1844, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1838; Senior Assistant Surgeon, King's College Hospital, 1840-1847; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1845; Lecturer in Pathology, King's College Hospital, 1847; Officer of Health to the City of London, 1848-1855; Chief Medical Officer of Health to the General Board of Health, 1855-1876; built up a state medical department for public health and developed the vaccination system, and was particularly concerned with eradicating the smallpox virus; influential in bringing about the Sanitary Act, 1866 and Public Health Act, 1875; Surgeon, St Thomas's Hospital; member, Privy Council, 1858-1876; member of Council, 1868-1880, Vice-President, 1876-1878 and President, 1878-1879, Royal College of Surgeons of England; President, Royal Society, 1879-1880; knighted, 1887; died, 1904.

Publications include: A Physiological Essay on the Thymus Gland (London, 1845); General Pathology, as conducive to the establishment of rational principles for the diagnosis and treatment of disease (London, 1850); Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City of London, for the year 1853-4 (London, 1854); Report on the last two Cholera-epidemics of London, as affected by the consumption of impure water (Stationery Office, London, 1856); Inflammation in T Holmes A System of Surgery, ... in treatises by various authors, vol 1 (1860); English Sanitary Institutions, reviewed in their course of development, and in some of their political and social relations (Cassell & Co, London, 1890).