Born at Chulmleigh in Devon, where his father, J C Davy, had long practised. He became a student at Edinburgh and at Guy's Hospital, and worked under John Hilton and Thomas Bryant. He returned to Edinburgh and followed the clinics of Spence, Syme, and Lister. He was a Clinical Clerk under Dr J Hughes Bennett and Dr Thomas Laycock, and was greatly attracted by William Turner's teaching of anatomy. He graduated in 1862 with 2nd class honours, his thesis being on "Clinical Reports upon certain forms of Cerebral Disease". His interest was distinctly surgical, and he spent the winter of 1863 in Paris, working at anatomy and practical surgery. Some of his Edinburgh friends bore him company, including John Duncan, afterwards a leading surgeon in the Edinburgh school. In 1864 he settled in London, and was appointed Surgeon to the St Marylebone General Dispensary, and in 1871 on the staff of Westminster Hospital, where he held the offices of Assistant Surgeon, Surgeon, and Surgeon in charge of the Orthopaedic Department. He was also Lecturer on Practical and Operative Surgery in the Medical School. Davy has been described by his contemporaries as an unconventional and independently-minded man, more interested in the mechanical side of surgery, in which he exulted, than its scientific aspect. Trained by Spence in the Edinburgh school, he was antagonistic to Listerism and did not believe in the modem theories of sepsis. To him infections following surgical operations were the result of 'diatheses', and if the patient were possessed by the septic diathesis, so much the worse for the patient. Davy was a highly original orthopaedic surgeon; he was an exponent of the removal of the bones of the tarsus for flat-foot and club-foot, and of the excision of the knee- and hip-joints for tuberculous disease. His name has survived in instrument catalogues under the title of 'Davy's rod' or 'lever'. This rod he passed up the rectum in an attempt to compress the iliac arteries during amputation at the hip-joint, but it caused injury of the rectum and soon fell into disuse. In 1893 Davy resigned all his appointments, retired to Devonshire, and became a country gentleman. He died at Burstone Manor, Bow, North Devon, on September 25th, 1920, and was buried at Chulmleigh. He married the daughter of George Cutliffe, of Witheridge, Devon, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom became a nurse at St Thomas's Hospital. Publications: *New Inventions in Surgical Mechanisms*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1875. *Surgical Lectures delivered in the Theatre of Westminster Hospital*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1880. *General Remarks on Sanitation*, 8vo, London, 1888. *Westminster Hospital Medical School: The Introductory Address*, 8vo, London, 1875. "Excision of an Osseous Wedge at the Transverse Tarsal Joint in confirmed Club Foot." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1876, 1877, 1883. "New Method of Controlling Hemorrhage during Amputation at Hip-joint." - *Ibid.*, 1878, i, 704. "Tibio-femoral Impaction for Excision of Knee-joint." - *Ibid.*, 1883, ii, 758. "Observations on some Local Anaesthetics" (with Dyce Duckworth), 8vo, Edinburgh, 1862; reprinted from *Edin. Med. Jour.*, 1862.