| Description Of Item | Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 104 cm
Born in Calcutta, Thomas Richard Fraser (1841–1920) graduated with an MD from Edinburgh in 1862; he was awarded a Gold Medal for his thesis on the actions and therapeutic use of the ordeal bean of Calabar, physostigma venenosum. He was appointed Assistant to Sir Robert Christison in the Materia Medica Department of Edinburgh University.
In 1870 he was appointed Lecturer on Materia Medica in the Extra-Mural School and he was Assistant Physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh from 1869 to 1874. In 1877 Sir Thomas was elected to the Chair of Materia Medica which he held for 40 years. In 1898 he went to India as Chairman of India's Plague Commission and on his return to Edinburgh he was honoured by a Knighthood in 1902. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and London and Honorary Physician to King Edward VII. He obtained Doctor of Laws from Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities, Doctor of Science from Cambridge University, an MD from Dublin and an LLD [Legum Doctor] from Edinburgh.
Artist: Thomas Martine Ronaldson |