Doctor William Patton Thornton, son of William and Martha Patton Thornton, was a prominent physician, educator, author, politician, and member of the influential Thornton family of Logansport, Indiana.
Education
After a brief study for the ministry (1837) at Wabash College, Indiana, William began his preparations for medicine at the Ohio College of Medicine. He graduated from Kemper’s Medical College, Saint Louis, and Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.
Career
After graduation, Doctor William P Thornton spent five years in Houston, Mississippi, where he began to specialize in diseases of the trachea and larynx. In 1847 Doctor Thornton returned to Ohio and established a thriving practice. In the late 1850s, he spent two years in Europe, studying the latest procedures in Paris and Vienna.
Doctor Thornton was one of the first Cincinnati doctors to undertake such a study.
Upon his return, he began his long affiliation with the Cincinnati Hospital and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he was named chair of the Anatomy and Physiology Department. Doctor Thornton published academic papers on cholera and laryngology.
After retiring from practice in 1877, Doctor West P Thornton served as mayor of College Hill, Ohio, until his death. Joseph F Tuttle, President of Wabash College, delivered the sermon at Doctor Thornton’s funeral.
Thornton left a sizeable portion of his estate to Wabash College to endow a professorship.
In 1841 William Thornton married Electa Bacon in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Membership
William was a cousin of Samuel West. Thornton, a member of the Nebraska Legislature of 1887, and Judge James Johnston Thornton of Seguin, Texas.