641 



w]iich attended this ill-fated campaign, many of the wounded fell 

 into the hands of the enemy and were made prisoners of war. 

 Here the disinterested magnanimity of the young volunteer was 

 exhibited in his request to be allowed to remain to attend upon the 

 sick and wounded. This laudable determination subjected him to 

 exertions and labours of no ordinary kind, his services not only 

 being rendered available, in the most active sense, to his own coun- 

 trymen, but to the enemy also. Restored to his own country, Mr. 

 Thomas became associated with Mr. Cruikshank in 1799, at the 

 Schoolof Anatomy in Windmill-street, where he gained great credit 

 as demonstrator. About this time he had the honour conferred 

 upon him of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and be- 

 came a contributor to its Transactions. 



As connected with the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr. Thomas was 

 admitted into the Council, and for many years was one of the Court 

 of Examiners, an office which he retained to the period of his retiring 

 from practice. In this situation he displayed his innate kindness of 

 heart, by his encouraging method of examining, which tended greatly 

 to dissipate the nervous diffidence of those presenting themselves be- 

 fore this searching tribunal. In the usual routine, Mr. Thomas served 

 the office of President, and delivered the Hunterian Oration on the 

 14th February, 1827. For some years the disease of stone in the 

 bladder had proved a serious interruption to Mr. Thomas's comfort, 

 and at the age of sixty-five became so intolerable that his profes- 

 sional friends acceded to his suggestion of undergoing the then 

 new and ingenious method oi crushing, which was accomplished in 

 their presence, most skilfully, by the Baron Heurtaloup, and with 

 the happiest result ; a calculus, of very considerable size, having 

 been pulverized and effectually removed with comparatively little 

 or no pain. This proved instrumental to renewed constitutional 

 vigour and enjoyment to the age of seventy -five, when suspicious 

 indications of a renewal of calculous formation created alarm, and 

 determined Mr. Thomas to seek repose by retiring frona professional 

 anxiety, and on this occasion he received the thanks of the Council 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for his long and 

 efficient services. 



Mr. Thomas's retirement enabled him to enjoy domestic society, 

 although suff'ering from gradually increasing infirmities, which led 

 to the termination of his valuable life at the age of seventy-seven. 



The reflection of having passed an active life in a profession and 

 in a position which allowed of administering to the comforts and of 

 meliorating the condition of suffering humanity, pro/ed, in the in- 

 stance before us, a soothing balm to the departing spirit. 



John Thomson, M.D., one of the ablest representatives of the 

 last generation of medical men, was Professor of General Pathology 

 in the University of Edinburgh, and died on the 11th of October last, 

 at his residence in the vicinity of that city, at the advanced age of 

 eighty-two years. 



He was born in the town of Paisley in Renfrewshire, and in over- 



