Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/264

 paper on ‘The Effect of Pressure in lowering the Freezing-point of Water,’ communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1849 (printed in its ‘Transactions,’ vol. xvi. pp. 541 seq., and republished in the ‘Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal’ in November 1850), he expounded the principles which in 1857 he used as the foundation of his explanation of the plasticity of ice, a subject which continued to engage his attention for years. The results of his researches appeared from time to time in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Royal Society, the most important dealing with ‘crystallisation and liquefaction as influenced by stresses tending to change of form in the crystals’ (December 1861). Many other subjects occupied his active mind. He extended to an important degree the discoveries of his Belfast colleague, Dr. Thomas Andrews, on the continuity of the gaseous and liquid states of matter, made valuable researches on the grand currents of atmospheric circulation, investigated the jointed prismatic structure seen at the Giant's Causeway and elsewhere, and the flow of water in rivers. Papers from his pen on these subjects and others will be found in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Royal Society.

Thomson received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Glasgow in 1870, that of D.Sc. in 1875 from the Queen's University in Ireland, and that of LL.D. from the university of Dublin in 1878. He was elected F.R.S. in 1877.

A practical failure of eyesight obliged him to resign his chair at Glasgow in 1889, and on 8 May 1892 he died, and was followed to the grave within a few days by his second daughter and by his wife. He married, in 1853, Elizabeth, daughter of William John Hancock, Lurgan, co. Armagh, and sister of Dr. Neilson Hancock, professor of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen's College, Belfast. He had one son and two daughters.

[Memoir by J. T. Bottomley, F.R.S., in Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 1892–3; obituary notice in Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. liii.; information kindly supplied by his son and daughter, Mr. James Thomson and Miss Thomson, Newcastle-on-Tyne; Addison's Glasgow University Graduates, 1898.]  THOMSON, JAMES BRUCE (1810–1873), pioneer of criminology, born in 1810 at Fenwick in Ayrshire, was son of James Thomson, by his wife Helen Bruce. The parents appear to have died while their two sons were youths, and the boys were left in destitute circumstances, but they were educated at the cost of a friend. James was sent to Glasgow University, and took his diploma as a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1845. Thereupon he proceeded to practise in Tillicoultry. While there Thomson acted as factory surgeon, and his first contribution to medical literature was a paper on the beneficial effects of the oil used in the manufacture of wool on the health of the workers. This brought him some repute, and Sir John Kincaid, inspector of prisons, directed the attention of the general board of prisons to his abilities. In consequence he was appointed first resident surgeon to her Majesty's general prison in Perth in 1858.

Thomson was thus placed in medical charge of a large number of prisoners, and the experience so gained enabled him to communicate to the medical periodicals of the day a series of able and important papers on the problems suggested by crime and criminals. In 1872 his health broke down, and he suffered from gangrene of the leg for many months before his death on 19 Jan. 1873. He married Miss Agnes Laing about 1845, but the marriage proved unfortunate, and resulted in a separation. There were no children.

Thomson's published papers were chiefly contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Medical Journal’ and to the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ between 1860 and 1870. In the ordinary course of duty he prepared annual official returns to the general board of prisons, Scotland; and with Sir Robert Christison [q. v.] in 1865 a special report on the prison dietaries of Scotland, with details of the regulations then in force and suggestions as to the future. His papers in the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ present Thomson in the important light of the pioneer of criminology in this country. He was the first medical writer of Great Britain to investigate the mental and physical condition of criminals from the modern scientific point of view, and to attempt a scientific estimate of the relations of crime with mental and physical disease. He made researches into the history of criminal families, and found that heredity was the prime factor of criminality, and that environment determined the almost inevitable issue. Thomson outlined the physical appearances of criminals—what are now called the stigmata of degeneration. He showed that tubercular disease was the chief ailment of the criminal class, diseases of the nervous system taking the next place in order of frequency. The close connection between insanity and crime he illustrated by the conclusion that