Sir Henry Thompson

Sir Henry Thompson, 1st Baronet FRCS (6 August 1820 – 18 April 1904) was a British surgeon and polymath.

Thompson was born at Framlingham, Suffolk. His father wished him to enter business, but he was eventually (by 1848) able to enroll in the Medical School of University College London. He obtained his medical degree in 1851 with the highest honours in anatomy and surgery.

In 1853 he was appointed assistant surgeon at University College Hospital, becoming full surgeon in 1863, professor of clinical surgery in 1866, and consulting surgeon in 1874. In 1884 he became professor of surgery and pathology in the Royal College of Surgeons. Specializing in surgery of the genito-urinary tract, and in particular in that of the bladder, he studied in Paris under Jean Civiale, who in the first quarter of the 19th century had developed a procedure to crush a stone within the human bladder and who had invented an instrument for this minimally invasive surgery.

After his return from Paris, Thompson soon acquired a reputation.

In 1863, when King Leopold I of Belgium was suffering from kidney stones, Thompson was called to Brussels to consult in the case, and after some difficulties was allowed to perform the operation of lithotripsy. It was successful, and in recognition of his skill Thompson was appointed surgeon-extraordinary to the King, an appointment which was continued by Léopold II. Nearly ten years later Thompson carried out a similar operation on the former Emperor Napoléon III; however, the Emperor died four days after, not from the surgical procedure, as was proved by the post-mortem examination, but from uremia.

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