Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Fraser, Thomas Richard
FRASER, Sir THOMAS RICHARD (1841-1920), pharmacologist, born at Calcutta 5 February 1841, was the second son of John Fraser, of the Indian civil service, by his wife, Mary Fraser (a cousin). Educated at public schools in Scotland, he afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and in 1862 obtained the degree of M.D., with gold medal, for a thesis ‘On the Characters, Actions, and Therapeutic Uses of the Ordeal Bean of Calabar (Physostigma venenosum)’. This early thesis, describing a brilliant and mature investigation, immediately placed him in the front rank of pharmacologists. He continued his researches as assistant (1864–1870) to Sir Robert Christison [q.v.] and in 1869 was appointed assistant physician to the Royal Infirmary, a post which he held till 1874. In 1877 he succeeded Christison as professor of materia medica in the university of Edinburgh, combining with it, as was then customary, a professorship of clinical medicine. For the long period of forty years, until his retirement in 1917, he filled this double rôle, teaching and researching both in the university laboratories of pharmacology and in the wards of the infirmary. He became also a valued consulting physician.
In these spheres Fraser, who was elected F.R.S. in 1877, attained a pre-eminent position. His pharmacological researches were of the first importance. His investigations of the actions of physostigma and of strophanthus were largely instrumental in introducing these two important remedies into medical practice. His publications, in conjunction with Professor Alexander Crum Brown, on the relation between the chemical constitution and physiological action of drugs laid much more than the foundations of this fundamental domain of pharmacological inquiry, while his researches on antagonism of poisons formed a model, new in design and convincing in accuracy, for future researches. Of his many other pharmacological and medical publications, those on arrow poisons, snake poisons, and immunity, were most important. Though he contributed less to the advancement of clinical medicine, his influence as a physician was considerable. In particular, the habits of accurate observation and of precision of language, which his trained mind imposed, had a lasting effect on generations of students. His writings, as well as his spoken word, were characterized not only by originality of outlook, but by a rare lucidity and dignity.
Fraser was chairman of the Indian plague commission (1898–1901), and president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1900–1902) and of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland (1908–1909). He was knighted in 1902 and was appointed honorary physician-in-ordinary to the King in Scotland in 1907. In 1874 he married Susanna Margaret, daughter of the Rev. R. Duncan, by whom he had eight sons (one of whom is professor of medicine in the university of London) and three daughters. In the latter half of his life he was much troubled by a bronchial affection which he endured and disregarded with great fortitude. He survived his retirement, with his habitual keenness of mind and of expression unblunted, for three years, and died in Edinburgh 4 January 1920.
[Gallerie hervorragender Therapeutiker und Pharmacognosten (early portrait and bibliography); British Medical Journal, 17 January 1920; Edinburgh Medical Journal, xxiv, 122 (portrait), 1920; Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xcii, B, 1921 (portrait); private information; personal knowledge.]