David Bayford. His syndrome and sign of dysphagia lusoria

Abstract

David Bayford (1739--90) was an unobtrusive medical worthy of the age of William and John Hunter, with each of whom there are documented links. From 1761, when he obtained the Membership of the Company of Surgeons, to 1782 he practised as a surgeon in London, though he was defeated by John Hunter in his bid for election to the staff of St George's Hospital in 1768. In 1782 he proceeded to the MD, granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he removed to Lewes in East Sussex, where he practised as a physician. He later became disfranchised by the Company of Surgeons in order to obtain the Licentiate of the College of Physicians. In 1761, while still an apprentice surgeon, he made his discovery of the unique and bizarre cause--compression of the oesophagus by an aberrant right subclavian artery--of a fatal case of 'obstructed deglutition' for which he coined the term 'dysphagia lusoria' and for which he is eponymously remembered. This discovery remained unrecorded until 1787, when a paper describing the case was read on his behalf before the Medical Society of London.