Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1161

NAME THOMAS 1139 THOMPSON of the Woman's Hospital in the State of New York, where his best work was done. When he resigned, he continued to operate in his pri- vate sanatorium until 1900, having a very large and remunerative practice. He was consultant at the Presbyterian, the French, the New York Lying-in, the Skin and Cancer and Memorial Hospitals. After 1881, when he became professor of clinical gynecology, his lecture-room was al- ways packed with eager listeners, who were not students of the college alone, but men of all ages in the practice of the profession. Few men had such power of holding an audience in sympathetic interest by the charm and sway of eloquence. These were the years of his greatest triumphs, both as a lecturer and as a surgeon. He was a member of the New York City Medical Society, New York Pathological So- ciety, New York Academy of Medicine, New York Obstetrical Society, New York State Medical Association, and American Gyneco- logical Society, corresponding fellow of the Obstetrical Societies of Philadelphia, Louis- ville and Boston, and Honorary fellow of the British Gynecological Society. He died at Thomasville, Georgia, February 28, 1903; his widow, with two sons, J. Met- calf and Thomas Gaillard, Junior, surviving him. His most important writing was the "Practi- cal Treatise on the Diseases of Women," Phila- delphia, 1868, which was translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese, and of which over 60,000 copies were sold. His articles included : "A History of Nine Cases of Ovariotomy," 1869; "Gastro-elytrotomy, a Substitute for the Cesarean Section," 1870; "Comparison of the Results of Cesarean Section and Laparo-ely- trotomy in New York," 187S; "A New Method of Removing Insterstitial and Sub-mucous Fibroids of the Uterus," 1879, etc. A tolerably full list of his papers is given in the Surgeon-general's Catalogue, Washing- ton, D. C. Amer. Jour. Obstet.. 1903, vol. xlvii. Portrait. pp. 502-506. P. F. Chambers. Tran=. Amer. Gynec. Soc. 1903, vol. xxviii, pp. 327-334. C. Cleveland. With bibliog. and portrait. N. Y. Jour. Gynec. and Obstet., 1891-2, vol. i, rp. HI. 112. Thomas, 'William George (1818-1890). He was born, March 23, 1818, in Louisburg, North Carolina, where he received a common school education and studied medicine with Dr. Wiley Perry, taking his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1840, and first practising in Tarboro, North Carolina, where he remained until 1850, then removed to Wilmington, North Carolina. He was a founder of the State Medical So- ciety, and one of its first vice-presidents, and later president. His writings are few. The only lengthy paper is an account of the yellow- fever epidemic in Wilmington (1862), pre- pared in reply to Dr. E. K. Anderson. From the beginning. Dr. Thomas became dominated in his practice by two ideas ; first, to study climatic diseases, and second, to pay attention to obstetrics and diseases of women. He was bold in the use of quinine, giving five grains every two or three hours in the remission stage of malarial fever — a practice unheard of at that day (1852) ; and his frequent appli- cation of the obstetric forceps. Dr. Thomas was a pioneer in gynecology. Before Marion Sims, he actually employed wire sutures for a vesico-vaginal fistula, his "duck-bill" speculum having been made by a local blacksmith. He was diligent in his labors and skilful — sympathetic in manner, and handsome in ap- pearance, his physical vigor enhanced by much horse-back riding. His marked characteris- tics were truth and moral courage. He married, in 1843, Mary Summer Clark, and had three children. One of these, Dr. George Gillett Thomas, became a surgeon. Dr. Thomas died of laryngeal diphtheria in 1890. Hubert A. Royster. Emin. Men of the Carolinas. In memoriam. North Car. Med. Jour., Wilming- ton, 1890, vol. XXV. Obit. Trans. Med. Soc. North Carolina, 1890, Wil- mington. 1891. Portrait. Portrait also in the Surg.-Gen.'s Lib., Wash., D. C. Thompson, Abraham Rand (1781-1866). This prominent physician of Charlestown, Massachusetts, was born in that town, May 20, 1781, the year of the founding of the state tnedical society, and there he lived, dying of paralysis, May 11, 1866, having served two generations as medical adviser, delivered sev- eral orations and acted for three terms as chairman of the board of trustees of the newly created lunatic hospital at Worcester. At the age of ten years he went to live with his uncle, Abraham Rand, at Salem, Massa- chusetts, and here he prepared for Dartmouth Medical School, but returned to Charlestown in 1799 to the home of his father, Timothy- Thompson, who was of the fifth generation from James Thompson, the immigrant, who settled in Charlestown in 1632. Dr. Josiah Bartlett (q. v.). physician, orator and states- man, received Thompson in his family as a