Joseph Toynbee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee

Joseph Toynbee (30 December 1815 – 7 July 1866) was an English otologist, whose career was dedicated to pathological and anatomical studies of the ear.

He was born in Heckington, Lincolnshire in 1815.

In 1857 Toynbee became aural surgeon and lecturer at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington and was a pioneer in the field of otology. It was during this time that he composed two important works: A Descriptive Catalogue of Preparations Illustrative of the Diseases of the Ear (1857), and The Diseases of the Ear: Their Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment (1860). Also Toynbee is credited as the first physician to discover a link between stapes fixation and hearing loss.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1842.

Austrian otologist Adam Politzer (1835–1920) penned biographies in French (1905) and German (1914) honoring Toynbee, whom Politzer regarded as a major influence. Toynbee died in 1866 when he accidentally inhaled a lethal combination of prussic acid and chloroform; reportedly he was experimenting with these substances as a remedy for tinnitus. He was buried at St Mary's, Wimbledon.

He was married, in August 1846, to Harriet (nee Holmes), daughter of Nathaniel Holmes.

They had nine children together, including economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883), and daughter Grace (nee Toynbee), who married Percy Faraday Frankland in 1882.

Another son, Harry Valpy Toynbee, was the father of universal historian Arnold J. Toynbee, and archaeologist and art historian Jocelyn Toynbee.