South , John Flint , 1797-1882 , surgeon

John Flint South was born in 1797. He was educated by Rev Samuel Hemming DD, at Hampton, Middlesex, in 1805-1813. He was apprenticed as an articled pupil to Henry Cline the younger, a Surgeon at the St Thomas' Hospital, in 1814. He attended Sir Astley Cooper's lectures on anatomy. He was admitted MRCS in 1819. He became Prosector to the Lecturers on Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital, and was appointed Conservator of the Museum and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy, in 1820. He was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy jointly with Bransby Cooper in 1823, and on the retirement of Sir Astley Cooper he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1825 in preference to Bransby Cooper, an event which brought to a head disagreements between the two Borough Hospitals and led to the separation of the Medical Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in 1834, and full Surgeon in 1841. He resigned this post in 1863, having retired from the lectureship of surgery in 1860. At the Royal College of Surgeons, South was a Member of the Council from 1841-1873. He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1844; he was Professor of Human Anatomy from 1845-1847; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1849-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1859; and a Member of the Dental Board from 1864-1868. He served as Vice-President during the years 1849, 1850, 1858, and 1859, and was elected President in 1851 and 1860. As Vice-President in 1859 he marked his year of office by getting the body of John Hunter re-buried in Westminster Abbey, and wrote the inscription for his monument. South died in 1882.