David Boyes Smith


David Boyes Smith was deputy surgeon general of the Indian Medical Service.

Early life

David Boyes Smith was born on 19 November 1833. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he was president of the Royal Medical Society.

Career

Smith joined the Indian Medical Service in November 1855 and served during the Indian Mutiny. He was civil surgeon of Delhi, Mussoorie, Patna, Dacca, and Howrah, and became the first Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of Bengal in 1863.
He founded The Indian Medical Gazette in 1866 and afterwards was appointed principal of the Medical College, and First Physician in the Medical College Hospital, Calcutta. When he left India in 1885 he was elected professor of Military Medicine and Tropical Diseases, at the Army Medical School, Netley.

Personal and later life

Smith married after retirement. He had one daughter.

Death

Smith died on 3 June 1889 in Woolston, Southampton.
Not fulfilling the criteria for a military pension fund, Smith's friends set up a fund following his death, to help support his widow and daughter, the ‘David Boyes Smith Fund’.

Selected publications

, Sanitary Commission for Bengal, 1869.