Born at Glasgow, 10 October 1876, the fourth child and second son of David Forsyth, DSc, LLD, schoolmaster, and Christina Cairns, his wife. He was educated at the Central High School and the University of Leeds and at Berlin and Vienna. At Leeds he was house surgeon to Sir A Mayo Robson, pathological curator at the General Infirmary, and demonstrator of pathology in the University. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was admitted a Fellow without first passing the examination for Membership, and in 1918 he gained the Jacksonian prize with an essay on "Injuries and diseases of the pancreas and their surgical treatment". This prize he had already won in 1911, but could not receive it as he was neither a Member nor a Fellow of the College. During the war he went in charge of a nursing unit under the French Red Cross in October 1914, and remained as médecin-chef of the Urgency Cases Hospital, working with the French army first at Bar-le-Duc and then at Revigny, Meuse, until the armistice. He was appointed surgeon to the French Hospital in London in June 1919, and retired in July 1933. He was also elected assistant surgeon to the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women in 1919, became senior surgeon in 1924, retired in 1933 and was made consulting surgeon. He married in 1922 Phyllis Honor, daughter of the Rev J Le Brun of Alderney, Channel Islands; she survived him, but without children. He died at Fairholm, Alloway, Fife, on 5 April 1935, where he had retired on account of prolonged illness (diabetes and tubercle) after relinquishing his practice at 56 Harley Street, London, W1. He was buried in Alloway Churchyard. Forsyth established himself in a good position as an authority on the surgery of the pancreas and gall bladder. He was an expert fisherman, a first-rate shot, and an amateur photographer unusual skill. He presented the specimens illustrating his Jacksonian prize essays to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Publications:- An early specimen of total enucleation of the prostate removed by the late Mr McGill. *Brit med J*. 1907, 1, 1111. Specimens of disease of the gall bladder associated with gallstones. *W Lond med J* 1910, 15, 148. Injuries and diseases of the pancreas and their surgical treatment. Jacksonian prize essay, RCS 1918. (Unpublished.)