User:Grahamdane/James Thomson Surgeon 1823-54

Dr James Thomson was born at Cromarty, Scotland, on the 8th March, 1823. He was Assistant Surgeon with the 44th Foot Regiment (The East Sussex) and was with this Regiment in Malta in 1850 when cholera broke out and quickly killed all the surgeons of the corps except him. The 'skill, fortitude, and humanity' displayed by Thomson in arresting the progress of the disease gained for him the praise of the Commander-in Chief. At the outbreak of the Crimean War the 44th Regiment took part in the opening hostilities and Thomson was present at the Battle of the Alma on 20 September 1854. The combined British, French and Turkish armies defeated those of Russia; they spent two days burying the dead of both sides and were preparing to move on. Thomson volunteered to stay behind and treat 750 enemy wounded. The seriously wounded Russians were laid out shoulder to shoulder in a dense mass covering more than an acre and Thomson was left alone with them Cholera was raging throughout the region. In the first three weeks of the campaign the British had lost as many men to cholera as they had in battle. Thomson’s situation was perilous. He was isolated from his countrymen and bands of Cossacks were in the area. He had been left with just a little salt meat, biscuit and rum - and of course he was exposing himself even more to the epidemic. Despite all these dangers this young man succeeded in restoring to health about 400 of the Russians and embarking them to Odessa; but the inevitable happened, and Thomson died of disease on 8 October 1854, aged 31. A monument stands in Forres, Scotland, to the memory of James Thomson, “an officer whose life was useful and whose death was glorious". http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bridgeford/forres/tourist_thomson.html gives a picture of the monument and a transcription of the memorial tablet.