Arthur Thomson

Arthur Thomson MA, MB
Born	1858
Died	1935
Residence	The Museum, Oxford
Occupation	academic anatomist anthropologist medical
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1935 deceased elected_AI 1890.01.07 clubs Arts Club societies Royal College of Surgeons Anatomical Society

Notes

Office Notes

AI Council 1893 Member
AI Council 1894 Member
AI Council 1895 Member
AI Council 1896 Member
AI Council 1897 Member
AI Council 1899 Member
AI Council 1900 Member
AI Council 1903 Member
AI Council 1904 Member
AI Council 1905 Member
AI Council 1908 Vice President
AI Council 1909 Vice President
AI Council 1910 Vice President
AI Council 1911 Member
AI Council 1912-13 Member

House Notes

Professor of Human Anatomy in the University of Oxford
proposed 10 Dec. 1889
death noted in Report of the Council 1934-1935

Notes From Elsewhere

Arthur Thomson (21 March 1858, Edinburgh – 7 February 1935, Oxford) was a British anatomist and anthropologist. He is best remembered for his formulation of Thomson's Nose Rule, which states that ethnic groups originating in cold, arid climates tend to have longer and thinner noses, while the noses of those from warm, humid climates tend to be shorter and thicker.[1] The longer nose is an adaptation that heats and moistens inhaled air in higher latitudes.
Thomson was educated at Edinburgh University. In 1885 he was hired by Henry Acland to lecture on anatomy at the University of Oxford. Acland was determined to create a medical school at Oxford, but after he fell ill, Thomson had to bear much of the administrative burden. This would eventually prevent him from reaching his potential as a scholar.[2] Once the diploma for anthropology was formed in 1905, Thomson would be one of three professors who would make up the Oxford anthropology department until he retired in 1933.[2] From 1919 until his retirement, he was Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at Oxford (the first to hold that title) and also held a fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford.[3] He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1906 to 1908.[4]
His main pastime was watercolour painting, and he exhibited work occasionally at the Royal Academy, where he was a professor of anatomy from 1900–34.[2]

Born Edinburgh; died Oxford.
Professor of Human Anatomy, Oxford 1893-1933 and Student (i.e., Fellow) of Christ Church. Professor of Anatomy, Royal Academy. Numerous publications. Honorary degrees from Edinburgh, Durham and Oxford.

Publications

External Publications

A Handbook of Anatomy for Art Students, Clarendon Press, 1896.
The ancient races of the Thebaid: being an anthropometrical study of the inhabitants of Upper Egypt from the earliest prehistoric times to the Mohammedan conquest, based upon the examination of over 1,500 crania, Arthur Thomson and D. Randall-Maciver, Clarendon Press, 1905
"Man's Nasal Index in Relation to Certain Climatic Conditions", Arthur Thomson and L. H. Dudley Buxton, in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 53, 1923
The Endowment of Research, essay

Related Material Details

Other Material

PRM field collector, papers