Background
Thomas Lawson was born in Princess Anne County, Virginia, United States in 1789.
(Excerpt from Army Meteorological Register, for Twelve Yea...)
Excerpt from Army Meteorological Register, for Twelve Years, From 1843 to 1854, Inclusive: Compiled From Observations Made by the Officers of the Medical Department of the Army, at the Military Posts of the United States Previous to the year 1818 we possess no records of meteorological observations taken in the United States on an extensive scale. In that year Congress, acting upon the recommendation of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, created the office of Surgeon General of the Army, to which Hospital Surgeon Joseph Lovell was immediately appointed. The Medical Department was not, however, fully organized upon its present basis until the year 1821. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Thomas Lawson was born in Princess Anne County, Virginia, United States in 1789.
Definite information in regard to him begins with his appointment, from Virginia, as surgeon's mate in the navy on March 11, 1809. Two years on shipboard satisfied his longings for sea life and in January 1811 he resigned. In February he was appointed garrison surgeon's mate in the army. In May 1813 he was promoted to the surgeoncy of the 6th Infantry, which position he retained throughout the War of 1812. Upon the reorganization and reduction of the army in 1815 he became surgeon of the 7th Infantry. When the medical department was reorganized in 1821 and regimental and post surgeons were placed on one list, instead of being carried separately as before, he became the senior surgeon and remained such until his appointment in 1836 as surgeon-general.
He was a positive character and did much for his corps. He was a good doctor, according to the standards of his day, the day of bleeding, blisters, salivation and tartar emetic. He was a good observer and wrote vigorously and forth-rightly. His descriptions of "bilious intermittant" fever, which was apparently pernicious malaria, of cholera, yellow fever, and other diseases, were intelligent. He did not hesitate to point out military laxity as a cause of disease. Thus he wrote that moral as well as physical causes could be considered as having had an agency in producing the prostration of the 7th Infantry.
He was even more a soldier than a physician, and his administration was marked by concern for the military status of his department. He obtained for it military rank, two increases in numbers, proper uniform, stewards enlisted in the department, and increase of pay for other soldiers detailed to it for duty. He twice had line commands, once a regiment, and he served at other times as quartermaster and as adjutant. In 1848 he was brevetted brigadier-general for meritorious conduct in the Mexican War. He died at Norfolk on May 15, 1861, as the result of a stroke of apoplexy. The general order announcing his death described him as "full of military fire, which not even the frosts of age could quench. "
(Excerpt from Army Meteorological Register, for Twelve Yea...)
Quotations:
"Whether the cause of this mysterious disease was wafted to us in a current of air down the river, or was brought among us pent up in a steamer, or whether the atmosphere of the city, which had been throughout the season very insalubrious, had reached its acme of pestilential explosion, we know not; but one thing is certain, that cholera, at least in that dreadful form which it afterwards assumed, was unknown among us until the steamer 'Constitution' arrived in port. "
"The disease seized me on the third morning after its appearance among the troops. . On the following day the hospital steward was attacked; two acting stewards took the disease successively, and all the attendants were at one period or another affected with the disease. I am just now regaining my health; the hospital steward is not yet well, and the two acting stewards and four of the six attendants, died. "
Although reputed to be a "ladies' man, " Lawson never married.