Thomas Richard Fraser

Thomas Fraser
File:Thomas Richard Fraser.jpg A photograph of Fraser by Andrew Swan Watson
Born	(1841-02-05)5 February 1841 Calcutta, India
Died	Edinburgh, Scotland

File:The grave of Thomas Richard Fraser, Dean Cemetery.jpg

The grave of Thomas Richard Fraser, Dean Cemetery

Sir Thomas Richard Fraser FRS FRSE LLD (5 February 1841 – 4 January 1920) was a British physician and pharmacologist. Together with Alexander Crum Brown he discovered the relationship between physiological activity and chemical constitution of the body.

Life

He was born in Calcutta in India on 5 February 1841.

Fraser made his studies at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and graduated M.D. with gold medal in 1862. His award-winning thesis was based upon the positive medical applications of Physostigmine. This had been discovered by Sir Robert Christison in 1846 but its suggested uses were largely as a humane killing mechanism than as a medical tool.

In 1869 Fraser was a medical assistant professor at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In 1877 he was a member of an arctic expedition and later in 1877 was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh until 1918. In 1880 he was nominated Dean of the Medical Faculty.

In his later life he was both a consultant of insurance companies and of the Scottish Prisons Commission.

In 1867 he was elected a Fellow of thae Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposer was Sir Robert Christison. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1911 to 1916. He won the Society's Keith Prize for 1891-3 and their Makdougall_Brisbane Prize 1866-8. In 1877 he also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1889 and 1890 he reported about an arrow poison used in coastal areas of Kenya and Nigeria and analyzed the highly poisonous Calabar bean and Strophanthus hispidus. From 1898 to 1899 he was president of the Government Commission for the research on the plague in India. He served as President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1900 to 1902. In 1902 he was knighted by Queen Victoria for his work on the Indian Plague Commission. In 1908 he was elected President of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland.

He received honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University (LLD), Glasgow University (LLD), Edinburgh University (LLD), Cambridge University (DSc) and Dublin University (MD).

In later years he lived at 13 Drumsheugh Gardens in Edinburgh's West End.

He died in Edinburgh on 4 January 1920. He is buried in Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh, not far from his home.

Family

With his wife Susanna Margaret Duncan Fraser he had four sons, but one (John Duncan Fraser) died in infancy. His second son, Sir Francis Richard Fraser (1885–1964), also became a Professor of Materia Medica in Edinburgh. His third son was Henry Chapman Fraser (1887-1916). His fourth son, Frederick Palmer Fraser (1891-1907) died young.

Publications

• The antagonism between the actions of active substances; British Medical journal, 1872
• On The Physiological Action Of The Calabar Bean, Physostigma Venenosum Balf.; Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, XXIV, 1867
• On the connexion between chemical constitution and physiological action; ibidem XXV
• On Stropanthus hispidus; ibidem XXXV
• An investigation into some previously undescribed tetanic symptoms produced by atropia in cold-blooded animals
• Strophanthus hispidus: its Natural History, Chemistry and Pharmacology. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXXV, 955–1028

Academic offices
Preceded by James Andrew	President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 1900–1902	Succeeded by Thomas Clouston