Allen Thomson

Prof Allen Thomson FRS FRSE FRCSE (2 April 1809 – 21 March 1884) was a Scottish physician, known as an anatomist and embryologist.

The only son of Dr John Thomson by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of John Millar, he was born at Brown Square in Edinburgh on 2 April 1809, and was named after his father's friend, John Allen, secretary and confidential friend of Lord Holland. William Thomson was his half-brother. Allen Thomson was educated at the high school and University of Edinburgh, and then in Paris. He graduated doctor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh in August 1830. At the time of his graduation he was president of the Royal Medical Society in Edinburgh. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1831.

Thomson travelled in the Netherlands and Germany, visiting anatomical and pathological museums, and taking notes. On his return to Edinburgh he began to lecture at 9 Surgeon's Square as an extra-academical teacher of physiology in association with William Sharpey, who lectured on anatomy. These lectures were given from 1831 to 1836, and during the latter part of the time Thomson assisted also in teaching anatomy. In 1833 he travelled with his father for nearly three months, visiting medical schools in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and France. From 1837 to 1839 he became private physician to John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, then an invalid.

Thomson was appointed professor of anatomy in Marischal College, Aberdeen, in October 1839; but after the collapse of the joint school in the university in 1841 he resigned his chair, and again became an extramural teacher at 1 Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh. In the summer of 1842 he delivered a special course of lectures on microscopic anatomy, a subject which was then new. In these lectures he supplemented the views of German observers with results from his own investigations. In 1841 William Pulteney Alison resigned the chair of physiology in Edinburgh, and in 1842 Thomson was elected his successor. He occupied this chair for six years, making contributions to embryology. He was appointed Regius Professor of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow in 1848, in succession to James Jeffray. This chair he held until 1877, when he resigned it and went to live in London.

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