Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/242

 with the composition and properties of the alkaloids and iodides, the value of which was duly recognised by his admission to several learned societies both here and abroad, while his liberal cast of mind enabled him to take an active part in obtaining the apothecaries' act of 1815. He was one of the earliest supporters of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and he assisted in founding the Pathological Society of London.

His works are: 1. ‘The Conspectus Pharmacopœiæ,’ 8vo, London, 1810. This work was a commentary upon the Pharmacopœiæ of the London, Dublin, and Edinburgh Colleges of Physicians, to which in the later editions published in America the United States Pharmacopœia was added. The fifteenth edition was issued by Messrs. Longman in 1845, and it was adapted to the ‘British Pharmacopœia’ of 1885 by Professor Nestor Tirard, M.D., in 1887. The seventh American edition was issued at New York by Messrs. S. S. & W. Wood, 12mo, 1862. It was translated into German (Leipzig, 1827), and the appendix on poisons was again translated, and was published at Aachen in 1846. 2. ‘The London Dispensatory: a Practical Synopsis of Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and Therapeutics,’ 8vo, London, 1811. The eleventh edition was issued in 1852. It was translated into French (Paris, 1827). The work is one of great erudition, containing an immense amount of information admirably put together in an easy and lucid manner. It is illustrated by a great number of original experiments and observations. It was written in the intervals of a large practice. 3. ‘Lectures on the Elements of Botany,’ vol. i., with plates, 8vo, London, 1822. The lectures were delivered in ‘Tait's Gardens,’ Chelsea, and afterwards in the room formerly occupied by Joshua Brookes [q. v.] in Blenheim Street, Oxford Street. The work sold badly, so the first volume was alone published. 4. ‘Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1832; 3rd edit. 1843. 5. ‘Medical Statement of the case of the Princess Charlotte of Wales,’ 8vo, London, 1817. He edited: 1. ‘The London Medical Repository,’ vols. i–viii. 1814–17. 2. Bateman's ‘Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases,’ 7th edit. 8vo, 1829. 3. ‘The Seasons,’ by James Thomson, with notes philosophical, classical, historical, and biographical, London, 1847, 16mo. He translated ‘The Philosophy of Magic, Prodigies, and Apparent Miracles,’ by A. J. Eusèbe Baconnière Salverte, London, 1846, 8vo, 2 vols., a work dealing with the same subject as Sir David Brewster's ‘Letters on Natural Magic.’

[Lancet, 1849, ii. 46; a Memoir of Anthony Todd Thomson, privately printed in 1850; information from Colonel W. Johnston, C.B.]  THOMSON, CHARLES EDWARD POULETT, (1799–1841), governor-general of Canada, was third son of John Poulett Thomson, a London merchant, by his wife Charlotte, daughter of John Jacob, a physician of Salisbury. George Julius Poulett Scrope [q. v.] was his elder brother. He was born at Waverley Abbey, Wimbledon, Surrey, on 13 Sept. 1799, and educated at private schools. In 1815 he was sent to St. Petersburg to begin business life in a branch of his father's firm. Two years later he left Russia on account of ill-health, and spent the two succeeding years in Italy and other parts of the continent. From 1819 to 1821 he was occupied in the London counting-house, and from 1821 to 1823 he was again in Russia, after which he settled ultimately in London. Taking a keen interest in politics, particularly in financial and commercial questions, he was returned to parliament for Dover on 19 June 1826, Jeremy Bentham assisting personally in the canvass. On 28 May 1828 he introduced a bill for a repeal of the usury laws, and was subsequently a frequent and effective speaker on free-trade and other proposals for financial reform. On the formation of Earl Grey's ministry in 1830 he was appointed vice-president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy, and then withdrew from the commercial firm with which he was connected. He accompanied Lord Durham to Paris in November 1831 to negotiate a new commercial treaty with France, but the project fell through. In 1832 he carried out large improvements in the customs duties. At the general election that year, being elected simultaneously for Dover and Manchester, he chose the latter seat, which had been secured without solicitation on his part. He was re-elected for Manchester several times in succeeding years, his opponent in 1837 being Gladstone. In the new government he again occupied his former position at the board of trade, and in 1834 succeeded Lord Auckland as president. He continued his alterations and remissions in the customs, assisted materially in framing the Bank Charter and Factories Regulation Acts of 1833, and greatly improved commercial relations by treaty with many foreign countries. He failed in an attempt to persuade America and France to admit the principle of international copyright. In 1832 he organised a special statistical department at the board of trade, and in 1837 instituted the school of design at Somerset