John Caius, an English physician, founder of Caius college, Cambridge university, born at Norwich, Oct. 6, 1510, died in Cambridge, July 29, 1573. His name was Kaye or Key, which he Latinized into Caius. He took his degrees at and became a fellow of Gonville hall, Cambridge, and distinguished himself at the age of 20 by translating Chrysostom's "Method of Praying to God" and Erasmus "On True Theology." He spent some time in travelling on the continent, studied medicine at Padua, and in 1541 took his doctor's degree at Bologna. He returned to England in 1544, and practised at Cambridge, Shrewsbury, and Norwich. Henry VIII. appointed him lecturer on anatomy to the company of surgeons, London. In 1547 he became fellow of the college of physicians, and court physician to Edward VI., which appointment he retained under Mary and Elizabeth. He was elected president of the college of physicians for seven years in succession. There is extant a book of the college annals from 1555 to 1572 written by him in Latin. He obtained permission from Queen Mary to endow and raise Gonville hall into a college, which still bears his name (Gonville and Caius college), and accepted the mastership thereof.

Toward the close of his life, however, he resigned this office, but remained at the college as a simple fellow commoner until his death. His works are numerous on scientific, philological, and historical subjects. The most noted of them was " A Boke or Counseill against the disease commonly called the Sueate or Sueatynge Sicknesse".