John Flint South (1797–1882) was an English surgeon. Life The eldest son by his second wife of James South, a druggist in Southwark, he was born on 5 July 1797; Sir James South, the astronomer, was his half-brother. He was put to school in October 1805 with Samuel Hemming, D.D., at Hampton, Middlesex, where he remained until June 1813. South began to attend the practice of St. Thomas's Hospital within a few weeks of leaving school, and on 18 February 1814 he was apprenticed to Henry Cline the younger, then a surgeon there. He attended Sir Astley Cooper's lectures on anatomy, and met in 1813 Joseph Henry Green, a fellow apprentice and lifelong friend. South was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons of England on 6 Aug. 1819, six months before he had completed his indentures. He then acted for some months as prosector to the lecturers on anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital, and on 14 December 1820 he was appointed conservator of the museum and assistant demonstrator of anatomy there for a term of three years. He was elected a joint demonstrator of anatomy with Bransby Cooper in February 1823, an election which gave rise to friction between Cooper and Green. He then was made lecturer on anatomy. Illness in 1841 led him to resign his lectureship, and he removed to Blackheath Park, where he lived for the remainder of his life. South was elected a member of the council of the College of Surgeons on 3 March 1841, and on 28 July of the same year was appointed full surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, in place of Benjamin Travers; he resigned in April 1863. He was made surgeon to the Female Orphan Asylum in 1843, and on 27 September 1843 he was nominated one of the first fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He acted as professor of human anatomy and surgery in the college for 1845, and he was Hunterian orator in 1844. His oration made no mention of John Hunter; a history of medicine, it began early, and the time expired. He became a member of the court of examiners in 1849, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1851, and again in 1860. As a vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons he was instrumental in getting the body of Hunter interred in Westminster Abbey on 28 March 1859.