Robert Dundas Thomson

Robert Dundas Thomson FRSE FRS (21 September 1810, Eccles Manse, Berwickshire – 17 August 1864, Dunstable House, Richmond) was a Scottish physician and chemist and a pioneer of sanitation. He worked as an academic, medical officer of health and author.

The son of James Thomson, minister of Eccles, Berwickshire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Skene of Aberdeen, he was born at Eccles Manse on 21 September 1810. He was educated for the medical profession in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In Glasgow he studied chemistry under his uncle Thomas Thomson, then professor there. In 1840 he was at Giessen under Justus Liebig. He graduated M.D. and C.M. at Glasgow University in 1831; he became a member of the College of Physicians of London in 1859, and was elected a fellow the year of his death.

After making a voyage to India and China as assistant surgeon in the service of the East India Company, Thomson settled as a physician in London about 1835, and took part in the establishment of the Blenheim Street school of medicine. In his early career he applied chemical knowledge to the investigation of physiological question, including he composition of the blood, especially in cholera. He was employed by government to make experiments on the food of cattle, and to analyse the water supplied by the London utility companies. His researches on the constituents of food in relation to animals contributed to the development of veterinary nutrition.

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