'British Medical Journal' in 1871. His first post at a medical school in London was that of demonstrator of morbid anatomy at St. Mary's Hospital in 1869, and he became assistant physician there as well as at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street. In 1871 he left St. Mary's on becoming assistant physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, an office which he held till appointed physician in 1887. In 1900 he had reached the age limit, and became consulting physician. He was also on the staff of the Hospital for Skin Diseases at Blackfriars, and was thus engaged in the active practice and teaching of his profession for over thirty years.
Pathology, epidemiology, dermatology, and the history of medicine were the subjects in which he took most interest, and he made considerable additions to knowledge in each. In September 1877 he was the chief medical witness for the defence at the sensational trial in London of Louis Staunton and others for the murder of his wife Harriet by starvation, and effectively argued that cerebral meningitis was the cause of death, a view which in spite of the prisoner's conviction was subsequently adopted (Atlay's Trial of the Stauntons, 1911, pp. 176 et passim). He edited in 1875 Jones and Sieveking's 'Manual of Pathological Anatomy,' and in 1888 published a full and original 'Manual of General Pathology,' besides reading many papers before the Pathological Society, of which he became president in 1897. He delivered at the College of Physicians in 1891 the Lumleian lectures 'On Cancer, especially of the Internal Organs.' In 1879 he was sent to Russia by the British government with Surgeon-major Colvill to observe and report upon the epidemic of plague then existing at Vetlanka (Trans. Epidemiological Soc. vol. iv.). The Russian government did little to facilitate the inquiry, and a severe illness prevented Payne from accomplishing much, but he always retained a warm interest in epidemiology, and wrote articles on plague in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (9th edit.), 'St. Thomas's Hospital Reports,' 'Quarterly Review' (October 1901), and 'Allbutt's System of Medicine,' vol. 2, 1907. He took an active part on a committee of the College of Physicians in 1905 on the Indian epidemic of plague and was chosen as the spokesman of the committee to the secretary of state. He printed in 1894, with an introduction on the history of the plague, the 'Loimographia' of the apothecary William Boghurst, who witnessed the London plague of 1665, from the MS. in the Sloane collection. Payne also made numerous contributions to the 'Transactions' of the Epidemiological Society, of which he was president in 1892-3. In 1889 he published 'Observations on some Rare Diseases of the Skin,' and was president of the Dermatological Society (1892-3). Many papers by him are to be found in its 'Transactions.'
Payne's first important contribution to the history of medicine was a life of Linacre [q. v.] prefixed to a facsimile of the 1521 Cambridge edition of his Latin version of Galen, 'De Temperamentis' (Cambridge, 1881). In 1896 he delivered the Harveian oration at the College of Physicians on the relation of Harvey to Galen, and in 1900 wrote an excellent life of Thomas Sydenham [q. v.]. He had a great knowledge of bibliography and of the history of woodcuts, and read (21 Jan. 1901) a paper before the Bibliographical Society 'On the "Herbarius" and "Hortus Sanitatis."' In 1903 and 1904 he delivered the first FitzPatrick lectures on the history of medicine at the College of Physicians. The first course was on 'English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times' (Oxford, 1904), the second on 'English Medicine in the Anglo-Norman Period.' The history of Gilbertus Anglicus and the contents of his 'Compendium Medicinæ' had never before been thoroughly set forth. Payne showed that Gilbert was a genuine observer of considerable ability. The lectures of 1904 which Payne was preparing for the press at the time of his death did much to elucidate the writings of Ricardus Anglicus and the anatomical teaching of the Middle Ages. Payne demonstrated that the 'Anatomy of the Body of Man,' printed in Tudor times and of which the editions extend into the middle of the seventeenth century, was not written by Thomas Vicary [q. v.], whose name appears on the title-page, but was a mere translation of a mediæval manuscript of unknown authorship. He wrote long and valuable articles on the history of medicine in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' and in Allbutt's 'System of Medicine' (vol. i. 1905), besides several lives in this Dictionary. During the spring of 1909 he delivered a course of lectures on Galen and Greek medicine at the request of the delegates of the Common University Fund at Oxford. His last historical work was entitled 'History of the College Club,' and was privately printed in 1909.
In 1899 he was elected Harveian librarian of the College of Physicians, a post for which his qualifications were exceptional.
