Notice of some of the leading events in the life of the late Dr. John Thomson, formerly professor of surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons, and of Military Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, and more recently professor of general pathology in the University.
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Notice of some of the leading events in the life of the late Dr. John Thomson, formerly professor of surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons, and of Military Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, and more recently professor of general pathology in the University. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![the expression of his own best wishes for Dr Thomson''s success. This communication unfortunately arrived a few days too late. The majority of the Council, at a previous meeting, had com- mitted themselves as to the course they were to pursue, to such a degree as to render it impossible for them to draw back. There can be no doubt, however, that this letter produced a very startling impression upon them; and with a view to counter- balance its effect, and to justify the conduct of the Town-Council in His Royal Highness's eyes, a declaration of the high qualifi- cations of the gentleman on whom the chair was to be conferred, was obtained from several of the members of the Medical Fa- culty in the University—a declaration that has gone far to de- stroy all confidence on the part of the patrons of university chairs in the judgments of academic colleagues. Early in the competition for the Practice of Physic chair, Dr Thomson resigned the chair of Surgery, which he had held for seventeen years from the College of Surgeons, and had the double gratification of receiving the warm thanks of that body for the manner in which he had discharged the duties of his oflSce, and of seeing elected as his successor in that office, his former pupil, and latterly assistant as well as friend, Mr Turner. In the course of the following summer, his services as surgeon to the forces having been discontinued, in consequence of reductions in the military establishments of the country, he resigned his ap- pointment as Professor of Military Surgery in the University, thereby freeing himself from any restrictions as a teacher; and accordingly, in the subsequent winter session, he delivered, as an extra-academical lecturer, a course upon the Practice of Physic. In entering on this course he at once put aside that arrange- ment of diseases which nosologists had adopted, in their desire to imitate the classifications of naturalists, and to secure to medi- cine the benefits which these classifications had conferred on the several departments of natural history. In its place he sub- stituted an anatomico-physiological arrangement, as the one best adapted for lectures or for treatises on the practice of physic, inasmuch as it brings together, in the first place, the different diseases of the same organ, and, in the second place, those of the organs most intimately related to one another. The expe- diency of this change has received the best sanction which it could have obtained in the ra])idity with which it has been al- most universally followed by other teachers of the same depart- ment of medicine in this country. Our Vnmts do not admit of entering into any exposition of the character of this course generally, or of the topics dis- cussed in it, and the manner in which they were treated. We may observe, however, that the view which l)r Thomson presented](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2194457x_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
