Professor Thomas Thomson. 87 



municate, for their information, a Memoir of his celebrated 

 contemporary and rival, the late Dr Thomas Thomson.*] 



Thomas Thomson, M.D.,F.R.S., Regius Professor of Che- 

 mistry in the University of Glasgow, was the seventh child 

 and youngest son of John Thomson and Elizabeth Ewan, 

 and was born at Crieff on the 12th April 1773. He was first 

 educated at the parish school of Crieff, and was sent, in 1786, 

 in his thirteenth year, for two years, by the advice of his 

 brother and of his uncle, the Rev. John Ewan, minister 

 of the parish of Whittingham, in East Lothian, a man of 

 some independent means, to the burgh school of Stirling, 

 at that time presided over by Dr Doig, the distinguished 

 author of the " Letters on the Savage State." Here he ac- 

 quired a thorough classical education, the benefits of which 

 have been so signally manifested in his numerous improve- 

 ments of chemical nomenclature now generally adopted in 

 the science. In consequence of having written a Latin Ho- 

 ratian poem of considerable merit, his uncle was recom- 

 mended by Principal M'Cormack of St Andrews to advise 

 that he should try for a bursary at that University, which 

 was open to public competition. He accordingly went, in 

 1788, to that school of learning, which has produced among 

 its celebrated scientific students in our own day, a Playfair, 

 an Ivory, and a Leslie, &c, and, having stood an examina- 

 tion, carried the scholarship, which entitled him to board and 

 lodging at the University for three years. In 1790 he came 

 to Edinburgh, and became tutor in the family of Mr Kerr, of 

 Blackshiels, one of his pupils being afterwards well known 

 in connection with the bank of Leith. At the end of 1791, 

 being desirous of studying medicine, he came to Edinburgh, 

 and resided with his elder brother, now the Rev. James 

 Thomson, D.D., minister of the parish of Eccles, one of the 

 fathers of the Church of Scotland, the author of many arti- 

 cles in the " Encyclopaedia,' ' and of a recent work on the 

 Gospel by St Luke, who survives, and had succeeded the 



* The conflicting statements made by Berzelius and Thomson may give rise 

 to explanations from the friends of the illustrious and distinguished philoso- 

 phers — Ed. of Edin, New Phil, Journal. 



