William Gilman Thompson

Background

Thompson was born in New York City, in 1856, the son of Joseph Parrish Thompson and his second wife, Elizabeth Coit Gilman. Daniel Coit Gilman was his uncle.

Education

He received his early education in private schools and the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, Connecticut, with one year of study in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was graduated from Yale with the Ph. B. degree in 1877 and proceeded to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. His work here was interrupted by the death of his father in Europe. He crossed the sea at once and spent a year studying at the medical departments of King's College, London, and the University of Berlin. He returned to the United States and received the M. D. degree from Columbia in 1881.

Career

In 1885 he won the Joseph Mather Smith prize for his essay, "Structure of the Heart Valves, " and the Harsen prize for his essay, "Photography of the Living Heart in Motion. " He served for eighteen months as interne of the New York Hospital, and then was appointed visiting physician to the Bloomingdale Asylum at White Plains, N. Y. , and at the New York Cancer Hospital. In 1887 he became visiting physician of the New York Hospital and the Presbyterian, serving the former for seven years and the latter for twenty-five.

He was made "quiz master" at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1884-85, and in 1887 became professor of physiology at the University of the City of New York. He held this chair until 1898. From 1898 until 1916 he served as professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College in New York City and was then made professor emeritus. When the Loomis Laboratory, the first institute of experimental medicine in America, was opened in 1888, he was made director. He knew the value of clinical research and spent much of his life in the study of disease at the bedside.

On his retirement from Cornell, he plunged into the work for which he has become best known – reeducation in connection with war and industrial diseases. For many years he was chairman of the Industrial Hygiene Division of the New York Labor Department, organized to carry out a scientific study of hygienic conditions in industries. During the World War he organized a functional reëducational clinic, and from that developed the Reconstruction Hospital, of which he was the founder. Under his direction chronic patients and incurables were taught to do constructive and interesting work.

He was considered an authority on foods, and his Practical Dietetics (1895) went through many editions. He wrote numerous medical articles which were published in medical journals, newspapers, and textbooks. He was co-editor, with A. L. Loomis, of System of Practical Medicine by American Authors (4 volumes, 1897 - 98), and author of Training-Schools for Nurses (1883), Text-book of Practical Medicine (1900), and Occupational Diseases (1914).

He died of heart disease.

Achievements

• Thompson is remembered as a founder and president of the Reconstruction Hospital. He introduced important changes in the methods of teaching physiology, and was one of the first physicians in America to develop clinical research along with laboratory investigation.

Works

More photos

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  • Training-Schools for Nurses: With Notes on Twenty-Two Schools (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Training-Schools for Nurses: With Notes on T...)

  • Practical Dietetics

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Occupational Diseases: Their Causation, Symptoms, Treatment and Prevention - Primary Source Edition

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Membership

He held offices in the New York Botanical Society and the Garden Club, and was a member of many medical societies in New York.

Personality

A dynamic man of untiring energy, he devoted his life to his work and left little time for hobbies. He was forceful and progressive, remarkable for his affability in spite of the fact that among his associates he had few intimate friends.

Connections

He was married on August 11, 1887, to Harriet Howard Pomeroy, daughter of John Norton Pomeroy, whom he survived by a few months.

Father:

Joseph Parrish Thompson

1819–1879

Mother:

Elizabeth Coit Gilman Thompson

1821–1892

Spouse:

Harriet P Pomeroy Thompson

1860–1926