George Ritchie Thomson

Prof (Lt Col) George Ritchie Thomson CMG FRSE LLD (18 November 1865–14 March 1946) was a 19th/20th century Scottish military surgeon and expert on tropical medicine who served in the Second Boer War and First World War and advanced public health in South Africa. Life He was born on 18 November 1865 near Tobermory, the son of Isabella Ritchie and her husband, John Alexander Thomson. His family moved to Glasgow in his youth and his father became headmaster of Green Street School. The family lived at 8 Morris Place on Monteith Row. He attended Glasgow High School. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh graduating with an MB ChB in 1887. He undertook his internship at Glasgow Royal Infirmary then went to Tottenham Hospital in north London. In 1891 he returned to Glasgow as Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, also assisting Prof Sir William MacEwan at the University of Glasgow In 1896 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Gray McKendrick, James Bottomley, Magnus Maclean and Alexander Galt.