THOMAS
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THOMAS
practice of surgery, to which was an-
nexed, at his own request, the chair of
medical jurisprudence. During the Civil
War Thayer was active as an examining
surgeon, and in the volunteer medical
ser\ace in South Carolina and at Pitts-
burg Landing and Corinth. On return-
ing to Cleveland he resumed duties in the
college, until, in 1890, failing health com-
pelled him to claim a few months of rest.
Unfortunately neither rest nor medical
treatment suflBced for his restoration,
and he died in Cleveland October 1,
1890.
On June 27, 1861, Dr. Thayer married Mary Ellen Mesury, and had two boys and two girls. One of these boys, Josei^h M., became a physician.
Dr. Thayer was a prudent and skillful surgeon of bluff and hearty manners and a ready and caustic wit, which won him both friends and enemies. As an expert witness upon the witness stand he was at his very best, and woe to the unwary lawyer who aspired to entangle or confuse him in the toils of medico-legal ambigui- ties. As a teacher he was distinguished by positiveness and a clearness of state- ment, which rendered him very popular among students. If we add to this that Dr. Thayer is said to have been the first teacher in the Cleveland Medical College to discard written lectures and even notes, and to deUver his lectures extem- pore, his popularity in college circles is readily understood. Dr. Thayer was a member of the Ohio State Medical Society and of the Cuyahoga County Medical Society.
A good portrait (crayon) of Dr. Thayer will be found in the parlors of the Cleve- land Medical Library Association.
H. E. H.
Cleave's Biographical Cyclopedia of Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Philadelphia, 1875.
Thomas, Amos Russell (1826-1892).
Amos Russell Thomas, dean of the Hahnemann Medical College of Phila- delphia, was born in Watertown, New York, on October 3, 1826, the son of Col. Azariah Thomas, whose Welsh an-
cestors were among the earliest settlers
in Massachusetts.
At first Thomas tried being a business man, but soon began to study medicine instead at the Syracuse Medical College, graduating in 1854, and practising that same year in Philadelphia, studying, meanwhile taking his medical degree at the old Pennsylvania Medical College. In this college he was first demonstrator and afterwards professor of anatomy for ten years. Soon after going to Phila- delphia he became a convert to homeo- pathy and in 1867 was made professor of anatomy in the Hahnemann Medical College.
Besides scientific papers to the journals of his school, Thomas wrote a valuable book on "Post-Mortem Examinations and Morbid Anatomy," also "Diseases of the Pancreas," "History of Anatomy," "Evolution of Earth and Man," and edited the " American Journal of Homeo- pathy," four years, and was co-editor of the " Hahnemannian Monthly."
Early in life he married Elizabeth Bacon, of Watertown, and one son, Charles M., followed his father's pro- fession. His only daughter, Florence, died in 1880, fifteen years before her father, who died at his house in Devon of carcinoma of the bladder December, 1895.
From data supplied by Dr. T. L. Bradford. Hahnemann. Month., Phila., 1892, vol. xxvii. Port, in the Surg. -gen. Lib., Wash., D. C.
Thomas, Charles Widgery (1816-1866).
Judge WiUiam Widgery, of Portland, was a sagacious man, who had been in turn lawyer, judge of common pleas, officer of a privateer in the Revolution, member of the Massachusetts General Court, and of the United States Congress. He had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married one EHas Thomas, of Portland. Their son, Charles Widgery Thomas, was born February 14, 1816, graduated from Bowdoin in 1834, and delivered the salutatory address in Latin.
He excelled so much in foreign langu- ages that after his graduation he was
