Richard Thome Thome. Ill 



construction, with both of which Thorne had much to do, are instances 

 in point. Once such standards had been fixed, nothing would induce 

 Thorne to assent to any proposals which fell short of them. One of 

 the principal services which he rendered to his Department was 

 collating and recording, in a way to evolve principles of action, sanitary 

 intelligence from foreign sources. Thus it came about that he was in 

 1885 nominated by the Foreign Office as British Delegate to the 

 International Conference on Cholera Prevention, at Rome; and he 

 afterwards attended, in the same capacity, four similar conferences, 

 the last being that which, in 1897, drew up the important Venice Con- 

 vention. The duties of Great Britain's representative at these con- 

 ferences were by no means easy. This country had adopted a system 

 of defence against imported infectious disease at variance with all Con- 

 tinental practice of " quarantine," and of our policy in this respect 

 Thorne was the verbal exponent. He had to convince delegates of 

 other nations that our system of medical inspection in substitution 

 for " quarantine " had not been resorted to merely to escape from 

 tyrannous interference with traffic at our ports, but had been adopted 

 in view of experience that, in point of public safety, " quarantine " 

 was a mistaken and mischievous policy. Thorne had a talent for 

 diplomacy of the sort which was here required, and from four succes- 

 sive conferences at Rome, Dresden, Paris, and Venice, he returned 

 having achieved notable success. Nor was the advantage thus 

 accruing confined to Great Britain, for his influence did much to bring 

 foreign countries to revise their methods and to adopt sounder systems 

 of precaution against imported cholera and plague. 



From his appointment as medical officer, in 1892, to the date of his 

 death, Thorne exercised a great and increasing influence in the 

 counsels of the Board and the Government. He possessed the faculty, 

 essential to the holder of his office, of forming rapid decisions, often at 

 very short notice, upon the multitude of complex problems which 

 came daily before him. He was elected a Fellow of this Society in 

 1890, was made C.B. in 1892, and was advanced to K.C.B. in 1897. 

 He had conferred on him several Honorary Degrees. He was a 

 member of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis of 1896, and of 

 that on Sewage Disposal which was appointed in 1898. 



Though he would make up his mind as to the merits of a subject 

 independently of outside influence, yet Thorne was keen that the 

 medical profession and the public should know the facts and see them 

 as he did. To this extent he attached much weight to the support of 

 public opinion, and few men have done so much to educate the public 

 mind in sanitary questions. He contributed frequently to medical 

 and other periodicals, and now and again took part with effect, 

 in discussions and conferences on pressing sanitary questions of the 

 day. He was an admirable lecturer, and several of his addresses and 



