Arthur Thomson (military surgeon)

Surgeon Major Arthur Saunders Thomson (29 December 1816 – 4 November 1860) was a notable military surgeon, medical scientist, writer and historian. He was born in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland in 1816.

He joined the British Army on 19 October 1838 as an assistant surgeon to the 17th (Leicestershire) Regiment of Foot and was stationed in India with the 14th (The King's) Regiment of Light Dragoons until 1847. There, he wrote about the epidemic of fever among his regiment during the monsoon season. Upon his return to England, he was appointed surgeon to the 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment of Foot and sent to New Zealand. In New Zealand he wrote extensively about disease statistics among Māori and European populations and climatology.

Thomson's book, The Story of New Zealand: Past and Present, Savage and Civilized (1859), is generally considered to be the first scholarly history of the island country.

He was promoted to surgeon major in 1858 and was sent back to England. A year later, he was placed in charge of the hospital steamship Mauritius and sent to China where he was in medical charge of the 2nd Division, British Expeditionary Force. He died there on 4 November 1860 and was buried in the Russian cemetery, Pekin.

Publications

• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1837). Prize Thesis. Inaugural Dissertation on the Influence of Climate on the Health and Mortality of the Inhabitants of the Different Regions of the Globe (Medical Faculty, University of Edinburgh, MD thesis). Edinburgh: John Carfrae & Son – via Wellcome Collection.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1 July 1838). "ART. VII1.-A Statistical Inquiry on Fever, being an attempt to ascertain the prevalence, susceptibility, intensity, and prognosis, with some observations on the influence of Medical Treatment". Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 50 (136): 87–118 – via National Library of Medicine.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1840). "Art. V. On the Doctrine of Acclimatization". The Madras Quarterly Medical Review. 2. Madras: Union Press: 69–76.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1843). "Article IV. Could the natives of a temperate climate colonize and increase in a tropical country and vice versa?". Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bombay (6). Bombay: Medical and Physical Society of Bombay: 112–138.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1849). Pukapuka ki nga Tangata Maori, hei Tohu i Ratou i te Mate Koroputaputa. Akarana (Auckland): Williamson & Wilson – via NLNZ.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1 July 1850). "On the Influence of the Climate of New Zealand in the Production of Disease among Emigrants from Great Britain". Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 74 (184): 82–91 – via National Library of Medicine.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (September 1851). "A Statistical Account of Auckland, New Zealand, as it was Observed During the Year 1848". Journal of the Statistical Society of London. 14 (3): 227–249 – via JSTOR.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (April 1854). "Description of Two Caves in the North Island of New Zealand, in which were found Bones of the large extinct wingless Bird, called the Natives, Moa, and by the Naturalists Dinornis; with some general Observations on the Genus of Birds". The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 56 (112). Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black: 268–295.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (10 December 1853). "Observations on the Climate of the North Island of New Zealand". New Zealand. Further Papers Relative to the Affairs of New Zealand. 1860. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office. pp. 16–23.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (April 1854). "On the Peculiarities in Figure, the Disfigurations, and the Customs of the New Zealanders; with Remarks on Their Diseases, and on Their Modes of Treatment". The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. 13 (26): 489–502 – via National Library of Medicine.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (April 1855). "On the Peculiarities in Figure, the Disfigurations, and the Customs of the New Zealanders; with Remarks on Their Diseases, and on Their Modes of Treatment". The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. 15 (30): 520–529 – via National Library of Medicine.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1859). The Story of New Zealand: Past and Present, Savage and Civilized. Vol. 1. London: John Murray – via Internet Archive.
• Thomson, Arthur Saunders (1859). The Story of New Zealand: Past and Present, Savage and Civilized. Vol. 2. London: John Murray – via Internet Archive.