Thomson, Anthony Todd, F.R.C.P. (1778-1849), professor of materia medica

Correspondence, detached signatures, autograph certificates and a biographical cutting, chiefly material formerly held in the Western Manuscripts Department's Autograph Letters Sequence.

1817-1845

11 items (numbered 1-10 plus 1^A)

Purchased from: Stevens, London, December 1919 (acc.62553) and March 1931 (acc.56485); Charavay, Paris, March 1928 (acc.67375); John Wilson, Eynsham, December 1990 (acc.348402), and J.L.M. Gulley, Wilmington, Kent, January 2013 (acc.1964). No.7 part of a batch of material transferred from Wellcome Historical Medical Museum offices, provenance not known (acc.69200); acquisition details of nos.8 and 10 not recorded.

Anthony Todd Thomson (1778-1849), physician, was born in Edinburgh. He studied at the University here, but did not take a degree. He moved to London and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800, setting up in practice in Sloane Street. He gained an extensive practice, becoming noted for the kindness and care with which he treated patients; he was also helped in his early days by the fame that came from resuscitating someone apparently drowned (for which he received a Humane Society medal). He helped to found the Chelsea, Brompton, and Belgrave Dispensary in 1812. He was also active in various professional societies such as the Association of Apothecaries and Surgeon-Apothecaries, the Medico-Chirurgical Society, the Westminster Medical Society, the Harveian Medical Society, the Pathological Society of London, the Linnean Society, and the Ethnological Society. He was a prolific author and also lectured on botanical and medical matters, including at the Pharmaceutical Societywhere he held the title of professor of botany.

He married, firstly, in 1801, Christiana (née Maxwell) of Dumfriesshire. The entry for Thomson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that Christiana died in 1815; however, this is contradicted by item no.1^A, which comprises a letter from Thomson to her dated 1817. She was, however, dead by 1820, since it was at this time that he married again, this time to Katherine Byerley of Etruria, Staffordshire (a relation of the Wedgewood family). She collaborated with Thomson and later with two of their sons, working as an illustrator; later she had a career in her own right as a writer and historical novelist.

Thomson was admitted doctor of physic at St Andrews University in 1824 and retired from general practice in 1826. In 1828 he became the first professor of materia medica and therapeutics at the newly founded London University; in 1832 he became professor of medical jurisprudence (initially holding the post in tandem with Andrew Amos). He also served as physician to the North London Hospital (later University College Hospital), at a time of faction and poor personal relations among the staff (there was a particularly poor relationship between Thomson and his close associate Robert Liston on the one hand, and John Elliotson on the other). As a professor he carried out experimental work on alkaloids and iodides; he is sometimes credited with the invention of the 'Gibson spoon', a device for administering medicines to patients who will not cooperate with treatment.

James Fernandez Clarke, in Autobiographical recollections of the medical profession (London: J.&A. Churchill, 1874), states that Thomson was knowledgeable about materia medica, and able to lecture well on the subject, but generally is uncomplimentary about the level of his physiological and pathological knowledge and about his teaching.

Thomson's health collapse in 1835: up to this point he had been notorious for his industry but here on he reduced his workload. He continued to write, lecture and practice, focussing in particular on skin diseases.

In 1842 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (he had been admitted Licentiate in 1828). He died in 1849 after a year of ill health and was buried at Perivale, Middlesex.

Database description transcribed from Richard Aspin and Christopher Hilton's typescript supplement to S.A.J Moorat's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts.