THOMSON 1144 THOMSON farm in Surrey and married. In 1796 his second child having scarlet fever and the doc- tor (Bliss) practically giving up the case, Thomson made his first experiment with steam and saved the girl. After that, wise in herbal lore, particularly that relating to lobelia, he became a traveling doctor, riding on horseback through New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, iirst patenting his remedies at Washington. He finally settled down to prac- tise in Beverly, Massachusetts, and naturally met with opposition among the faculty, though he also made converts to his system who, as he did, used lobelia emetics, sweating, capsi- cum, composition powder and hot drops. The author was once in jail on a charge of murder by lobelia poisoning, but was acquitted and afterwards opened an office and infirmary in Boston. For twenty years the Thomsonian System flourished in New England, such men as Benjamin Waterhouse (q. v.) and Samuel L. Mitchill (q. v.) in their private correspon- dence approving with reservations the system and unreservedly the author's frankness and zeal. Thomson passed from life on October 4, 1843, heroically partaking of his own remedies to the very end. "His New Guide to Health" was first issued in 1822 and, passing through various editions with enlargements, became "Thomson's Ma- teria Medica or Botanic Family Physician." This reached a thirteenth edition edited by Dr. John Thomson, his son. Two journals were started, The Botanic Watchman, in 1834, and the Thomsonian Recorder, 1833, which fur- nished curious and amusing reading. Davina Waterson. Bull, of the Lloyd Library, Reproduction Series, No. 7, 1909. Hist, of the Healing Art. Dr. Gardner C. Hill, 1904. The Botanic Watchman, 1834. vol. i. 1 Thomson, William (1833-1907). William Thomson was born in Chambcrs- burg, Pennsylvania, January 28, 1833, one of the three sons of Alexander Thomson, judge of the Sixteenth Judicial District of the State, and Jane Graham. He studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical College, and graduated M. D. in 18SS, and early attracted the attention of Dr. John Kearsley Mitchell (q. v.), being led by him to take over the practice of Dr. Clark, of Merion, on the Pensylvania Railroad, where he settled as a country physician. Four years later he married Rebecca George, a mem- ber of a well-known family of Friends then living on the original grant of land from Will- iam Penn to their ancestor. In the summer of 1861, as assistant surgeon, with rank as lieutenant, he entered the regular service, just before the disaster of Bull Run. He served in this position in the Army of the Potamac and in Washington and Alexandria until, in 1862, he joined General McClellan's headquarters as chief of staff to the medical director, Jonathan Letterman (q. v.). He was present throughout the Peninsula campaign and at Antietam. In 1863 he was placed as surgeon in charge of the Douglas Hospital, Washington, and in 1864 made medical inspector at Washington, which contained in its various hospitals over 23,600 beds. In 1866 he organized a hospital for the treatment of cholera, and had charge of the Post Hospital. After a brief stay on duty in Louisiana, he resigned in 1868 and was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in April, 1869. While in Washington he was largely in- terested in the Army Medical Museum — the creation of John H. Brinton (q. v.) — and was the largest contributor to the first published catalogue, for which he wrote valuable descrip- tions of osteomyelitis and wounds of joints. With his friend, William Norris (q. v.), he had utilized photography in the study of wounds, and had induced the Surgeon-Gen- eral to establish, in connection with the mu- seum, a photographic bureau. Thomson and Norris were the first to make negatives by the wet process of the field of the microscope with high and low powers, and led the way to the spendid success obtained later through the resources of the Surgeon-General's Office. These studies in optics finally dominated the future of Thomson and Norris, and led to their practice and teaching of ophthalmic sur- gery. Dr. Thomson, thus led by his mastery of photography to a close study of optics, began soon to display that facility of resource in ophthalmic medicine which characterized all he did. Early in his career his attention was directed to the subjective methods of determining ihe static refraction of the eye, and in 1870 he described a test for ametropia based on the experiment of Scheiner, and later in the same year brought his method to the notice of the members of the American Ophthalmological Society. In 1902 he brought before this society a new apparatus for the correction of ametropia, and upon its constant improvement he spent much time during the last years of his life, work-
