A native of Lincoln, Joseph Swan assisted his father, Henry Swan, surgeon at Lincoln County Hospital, before studying medicine under Alexander Monro secundus , Alexander Monro tertius, and Andrew Fyfe at the University of Edinburgh. After graduation he worked in London at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, before returning to Lincoln to take a post at the County Hospital. In Lincoln he carried out anatomical investigations on the well-preserved cadavers that Sir Astley Cooper sent him every Christmas in a large hamper labelled 'glass with care'. First published in 1830 in folio, A demonstration of the nerves of the human body was re-issued in quarto in 1834. It is a clear exposition of the course of distribution of the cerebral, spinal, and sympathetic nerves, and contains twenty-five plates, drawn by E. West, engraved by J. Stewart, and William and Edward Finden. In 1895 the original plates were presented to the Royal College of Surgeons of England.