Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/514

 (1792-1867), who first removed a stone from the bladder by the operation of crushing. Beginning life as a pupil of Civiale, Thompson at first crushed stones in the bladder at repeated intervals, leaving it to nature to remove the fragments. When Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890) recommended crushing at a single sitting and removal of the fragments by operative measures, Thompson improved the technique of the operation. Later, about 1886, when the discredited operation of supra-pubic cystotomy was revived, Thompson became its advocate.

Thompson's successful crushing operations at University College soon attracted attention, and in 1863 he operated at Brussels upon Leopold I, King of the Belgians, completing the work which had been begun by Civiale eighteen months previously. In July and December 1872 Thompson treated Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, at Camden Place, Chislehurst. He performed the operation of lithotrity under chloroform on 2 Jan. 1873, and again on 7 Jan. A third sitting was arranged for noon on 9 Jan., but the emperor died of sudden collapse an hour before.

Thompson's attainments and interests were exceptionally versatile. He not merely came to be facile princeps in his own branch of surgery ; his zeal for hygiene made him a pioneer of cremation ; he was at the same time an authority on diet, a devoted student of astronomy, an excellent artist, a collector of china, and a man of letters.

To the subject of cremation Thompson first drew attention in England by an article in the 'Contemporary Review' in 1874. Experiments had been recently made in Italy, but a cremation society, the first of its kind in Europe, was founded in London, chiefly by Thompson's energy, in 1874. From that time onwards he acted as the president, and did all in his power to promote the practice both in England and on the Continent. A crematorium was built at Woking in 1879. Its use was forbidden by the home secretary, and it was not employed until March 1885, after the government had brought a test case against a man who had cremated his child in Wales, and Sir James Stephen had decided that the practice was not illegal if effected without causing a nuisance. Thompson also took a leading part in 1902 in the formation of the company which erected the crematorium at Golder's Green, near London, and the rules laid down for the guidance of that company have proved a model for cremation societies throughout the world. The introduction of cremation drew Thompson's attention incidentally to the unsatisfactory nature of the law in regard to death certification. The Cremation Act of 1902 (2 Ed. VII. c. 8) was an attempt to remedy some of the evils to which Thompson directed attention.

Astronomy occupied much of Thompson's leisure. He long worked at an observatory of his own, which he erected at his country house at Molesey. But his chief services to the science were his gifts to Greenwich observatory of some magnificent instruments, including a fine photo-heliograph of 9-inch aperture, a 30-inch reflecting telescope, and a large photographic telescope of 26-inch aperture and 2½ feet focal length ; the last telescope, twice the size of any previously at Greenwich, was offered in March 1894, and being manufactured by Sir Howard' Grubb of Dublin, was erected in April 1897.

Thompson doubtless inherited artistic power from his maternal grandfather, Samuel Medley. His original talent was improved by study under Edward Elmore, R.A., and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, R.A. Paintings by him were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865, 1870, annually from 1872 to 1878, and again in 1881, 1883, and 1885. Two of these pictures were afterwards shown in the Paris salon, and to this exhibition he contributed a landscape in 1891. Thompson was also an eminent collector of china. He acquired many fine specimens of old white and blue Nankin. A catalogue illustrated by the owner and James McNeill Whistler [q. V. Suppl. II] was issued in 1878. The collection was sold at Christie's on 1 June 1880.

Besides numerous articles in magazines, Thompson wrote two novels under the name of 'Pen Oliver.' 'Charlie Kingston's Aunt,' pubUshed in 1885, presents the life of a medical student some fifty years before. 'All But : a Chronicle of Laxenford Life' (1886), is illustrated by twenty full-page drawings by the author, in one of which he portrayed himself as he was in 1885.

Cultured society had great attractions for Thompson. As a host he was famous for his 'octaves,' which were dinners of eight courses for eight people at eight o'clock. They were commenced in 1872, and the last, which was the 301st, was given shortly before his death. The company was always as carefully selected as the food, and for a quarter of a century the