Fraser in middle age13 Drumsheugh Gardens, EdinburghThe grave of Thomas Richard Fraser, Dean Cemetery
Sir Thomas Richard FraserFRSFRSE (5 February 1841 – 4 January 1920) was a British physician and pharmacologist.[1][2][3] 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, the second son of Mary Palmer and John Richard Fraser, Indian civil servant.[4]
Fraser attended the University of Edinburgh Medical School and graduated with an MD[5] and gold medal in 1862. His award-winning thesis was based on 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 rather than as a medical tool.[6]
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, serving 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 Prisons Commission.
In 1867, he was elected a Fellow of the 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 its Makdougall-Brisbane Prize 1866-8. In 1877, he also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[7] In 1879 he was elected a member of the Aesculapian Club[8]
In later years he lived at 13 Drumsheugh Gardens in Edinburgh's West End.[14]
He died in Edinburgh on 4 January 1920. He is buried in Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh, not far from his home. The grave lies in the south-west of the first northern extension, on the wall backing onto the original cemetery.
Family
With his wife Susanna Margaret Duncan Fraser (1850–1929) they had three daughters and eight sons:
Thomas, was given the middle name Christison in honour of the discoverer of Physostygmine
Mary Susanna Fraser (1877–1956)
George Moir Fraser (1878–1932)
Gertrude Agnes Fraser (b. 1882)
John Duncan Fraser, died in infancy in 1882
Lieutenant Commander William St John Fraser (1883–1915), was commander of the submarine E 10 when it was destroyed by enemy action in the North Sea near Heligoland with the loss of all hands
