Gilbert Alexander Bannatyne was born at Rutherglen, Lanarkshire in 1867, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel J. M. Bannatyne. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating M.B., C.M. in 1888. After working as house-physician at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he continued his postgraduate studies in Edinburgh and Paris, gaining an M.D. degree in 1891
He set up in consultant practice at Bath and became interested in rheumatic diseases. His first paper on rheumatoid arthritis was published in the Lancet in 1896, postulating a bacterial cause of the disease. In the same year, he wrote the earliest book to show a radiograph of rheumatoid arthritis
He was a consultant physician at both the Royal Mineral Water Hospital and the Royal United Hospital, Bath
During the first world war he served as a lieutenant-colonel in the R.A.M.C. and was commandant of the Bath War Hospital
Gilbert Bannatyne and Arthur Wohlmann, another doctor working at the Mineral Water Hospital, aspirated fluid from (unspecified) joints of 25 cases of RA and in 24 the very same microorganism was obtained, usually in enormous numbers. No attempt at blood culturing was mentioned and no synovial tissue was examined. Eighteen specimens were sent to F.R. Blaxall, a bacteriologist in London, for analysis. He found 1 small aerobic microbe with “two bright ends and an intermediate part much less obvious.” It stained best with methylene blue, but was difficult to grow. “The only points of resemblance are the polar staining and the easy discoloration”
Charles F. Painter, a Boston surgeon, attempted to confirm Bannatyne’s findings. He cultured synovial fluid from 8 cases of RA “following the technique exactly as described by the writers,” but obtained no growth. Subsequently he concluded that his pathologic findings on synovial tissue from cases
(From "Diseased Douched and Doctored - Thermal Springs , Spa Doctors and Rheumatic Diseases" by Roger Rolls - reproduced by permission)