to the current belief that the city was at that time filled with mobs, riots, and assassinations; but his enthusiasm for the new constitution, his firm belief in its permanence, and, above all, his assurance that the king was the sincere friend of the revolution, and was never before so happy, so popular, or so secure, are amusing when read in the light of the events which shortly followed, and which probably prevented the appearance of the second part, he returned to Paris in 1792, and was employed by the assembly on the English part of their proposed polyglot edition of the new (revised) constitution. This was intended to be in eight languages, but only the English (from the pen of Thomas Christie) and the Italian had appeared (3 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1792), when the assembly made way for the convention, and the republic took the place of the monarchy. In the meantime he had been induced during his first visit to Paris to join a mercantile house in London — it seems as a sleeping partner — but the result was unsatisfactory. In 1792 he dissolved this partnership, and on 9 Sept. of the same year married Miss Thomson, and became a partner with her grandfather, Mr. Moore, an extensive carpet manufacturer in Finsbury Square. In 1790 some business arrangements obliged him to make a voyage to Surinam, where he died in the month of October of the same year. Nichols, in his 'Literary Anecdotes, ix. 866-90, and in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. lxvii. pt. i. pp. 345-6, and Parisot, in the 'Biographie Universelle,' speak most highly of his abilities and his attainments. But in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. lxviii. pt. ii. p. 774, à propos of a notice of him in 'Literary Memoirs of Living Authors,' where his moderation and Christianity had been praised, it is stated: 'His moderation was most violent democratism, and his Christianity socinianism. He possessed considerable merit, but was of a most unsettled disposition.' Many of his letters will be found in Nichols, and others in Miss Seward's 'Correspondence.'
[Nichols's Lit. Anecd.; Gent Mag.; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Biog. Universelle; family papers.]
CHRISTIE, THOMAS, M.D. (1773–1829), physician, was born at Carnwath, Lanarkshire, in 1773. After education in the university of Aberdeen, he entered the service of the East India Company as a surgeon to one of their regiments, and was sent to Trincomalee in 1797. He was made superintendent of military hospitals in 1800, and soon after head of the small-pox hospitals in Ceylon. The systematic introduction of vaccination into the island in 1802 and the general substitution of vaccination for inoculation were effected by Christie. He served in the Candian war of 1803, worked hard for several years at medical improvements in several parts of Ceylon, and returned from the East in February 1810, and immediately proceeded M.D. at Aberdeen. At the end of the same year Christie became a licentiate of the College of Physicians, at once began private practice at Cheltenham, and in 1811 published there ‘An Account of the Introduction, Progress, and Success of Vaccination in Ceylon.’ This, his only book, is based upon official reports and letters written during his residence in Ceylon. In 1799 and 1800, as in many previous years, small-pox raged throughout the island. The natives used to abandon their villages and the sick, and at Errore, Christie found the huts in ruins from the inroad of elephants, bears, and hogs which had trampled down all the fences and gardens, and had eaten the stores of grain and some of the bodies of the dead or dying. Inoculation was practised, but did not check the epidemics, and the native population was averse to it. After some unsuccessful efforts active vaccine lymph was obtained from Bombay, whither it had come from an English surgeon at Bagdad, by way of Bussorah. Christie at once began vaccination, and by continued care and perseverance spread the practice throughout the island, so that by 1806 small-pox only existed in one district, that of the pearl fishery, to which strangers continually reintroduced the disease. In the course of his labours Christie made the original observation that lepers are not exempt from small-pox, are protected by vaccination, and may be vaccinated without danger. In 1813, through the influence of his friend Sir Walter Farquhar, the physician, Christie was made physician extraordinary to the prince regent. He continued to practise at Cheltenham till his death on 11 Oct. 1829.
[Christie's Account of Vaccination in Ceylon, Cheltenham, 1811; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 96; Cordiner's Description of Ceylon.]
CHRISTIE, WILLIAM (1748–1823), unitarian writer, one of the earliest apostles of unitarianism in Scotland and America, was a son of Thomas Christie, merchant and provost of Montrose, and uncle of Thomas Christie, political writer [q v.] He was born in 1748 at Montrose, and educated at the grammar school there under his kinsman, Hugh Christie [q. v.] Intended for a commercial life, he was for a few years a merchant at Montrose, but early in life he devoted his
