Instructor,’ which he started in Edinburgh in 1810, and he contributed to Brewster's ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia,’ of which he was part proprietor. His chief works are: 1. ‘A Catechism for the Instruction of Communicants,’ Edinburgh, 1808. 2. ‘Lectures Expository and Practical,’ 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1816. 3. ‘Lovers of Pleasure more than Lovers of God,’ Edinburgh, 1818; edited, with an introduction, by Dr. Candlish, Edinburgh, 1867. 4. ‘Sermons on Infidelity,’ London, 1821. 5. ‘A Collection in Prose and Verse for Use in Schools,’ Edinburgh, 1823. 6. ‘Sermons on Hearing the Word,’ Edinburgh, 1825. 7. ‘The Scripture History,’ Bristol, 1826. 8. ‘Scripture History of the New Testament,’ London, 1827. 9. ‘Sermons on various Subjects,’ Edinburgh, 1829. 10. ‘Sermons and Sacramental Exhortations,’ Edinburgh, 1831. 11. ‘The Doctrine of Universal Pardon,’ Edinburgh, 1830.
[Life by J. L. Watson; Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ, vol. i. pt. i. p. 74, pt. ii. p. 473; art. by Dr. McCrie in Blackwood's Magazine, 1831, i. 577; Life of Dr. Chalmers by Dr. Hanna.]
THOMSON, ANTHONY TODD (1778–1849), physician, younger son of Alexander Thomson, was born in Edinburgh, where his parents were staying temporarily, on 7 Jan. 1778. His father was postmaster-general and a member of the council of the province of Georgia, and collector of customs for the town of Savannah. Anthony returned to America with his parents soon after Anthony Todd, postmaster of Edinburgh, had stood sponsor to him as his godson; but when peace was declared after the American war, his father, in common with many American loyalists, threw up his appointments, and settled in Edinburgh with a small pension from the government. Thomson was brought up by Mrs. Rennie, who afterwards became his stepmother. He was educated at the high school, and was nominated, by his godfather's interest, to a clerkship in the Edinburgh post office. He graduated doctor of medicine at the university of Edinburgh in 1799, and in November of the same year he became a member of the Royal Medical Society. He had previously been admitted a member of the Speculative Society, 27 Feb. 1798, and there formed a lifelong friendship with Lord Brougham, having already gained the affection of Henry (afterwards Lord) Cockburn.
He left Edinburgh in 1800, after the death of his father, and settled as a general practitioner in Sloane Street, London, where he eventually acquired a very large practice. He was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons of London in 1800. In March 1812 he was instrumental in founding the Chelsea, Brompton, and Belgrave Dispensary, which is still a useful institution, and to his exertions was due the establishment of an infant school in the parish of St. Luke's, Chelsea. In 1814 Thomson became, with George Man Burrows [q. v.] and William Royston, an editor of 'The Medical Repository,' to the pages of which he contributed many articles.
He left Chelsea in 1826, was admitted a member of the Royal College of Physicians, and took a house in Hinde Street, Manchester Square. In 1828 he was elected the first professor of materia medica and therapeutics at the newly founded London University (now University College), and in 1832, on the death of John Gordon Smith [q. v.], he was appointed with Andrew Amos [q. v.] joint professor of medical jurisprudence. In 1837 Amos was appointed a member of the governor-general's council in India, and Thomson became the sole professor, and so continued until his death. He was also a physician to the dispensary attached to University College, which has since become the University College and North London Hospital. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1842, and he was then living in Welbeck Street. His health broke down from continued mental exertion in 1835, and he was compelled during the remainder of his life to relax his earlier labours, though he continued to practise, and devoted much attention to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the skin.
He died at Ealing on 3 July 1849, and is buried in Perivale churchyard. His fine collection of specimens of materia medica, with many illustrative drawings, was purchased by the government after Thomson's death for the use of Queen's College, Cork. He was twice married: first, in 1801, to Christina Maxwell, by whom he had issue one son and two daughters; and, she dying in 1820, he married, in the same year, Katharine, daughter of Thomas Byerley [see Thomson, Katharine]. He had three sons, including Henry William (Byerley) Thomson [q. v.] and five daughters by his second marriage.
Thomson's lectures on botany at the Pharmaceutical Society and in the gardens of the Royal Botanical Society did much to extend the teaching of this subject to medical students. He was a firm believer in the efficacy of drugs in the treatment of disease, and he was a plain but agreeable lecturer. He carried on some original research in connection
