Sir John Fife (1795–1871), was an English surgeon.
Fife was born at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1795, his father being a medical man of Scottish origin, practicing there. After qualifying as a member of the London College of Surgeons, he was for a short time an army assistant-surgeon at Woolwich, but returned to Newcastle in 1815, and commenced practice with his father. As a practitioner, and especially as a surgeon, the took a leading position in his town and throughout the northern counties, being remarkable for his punctuality and for the long distances he would ride in all weathers. In 1834 he took an active part in founding the Newcastle School of Medicine, in which he long lectured on surgery, being also surgeon to the Newcastle Infirmary. He became fellow of the College of Surgeons in 1844.
In 1848, assisted by Dr Robert Mortimer Glover, he did the autopsy on the 15 year old Hannah Greener, who had died controversially under the effects of the then-new drug chloroform, the first human death from this cause.[1]