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John Thomson was in many respects a very remarkable man. When upwards of twenty years of age, he might have been seen in his father's factory in Paisley, working at the loom as a silk-weaver; when he died, which was in his eighty-second year, he was Professor of General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh.
The "inspissated gloom" of his work, its tenebrous gulfs and musical vertigoes are true indices of his morbid pathology. He was of a pious nature, as was Dostoïevsky; but he might have subscribed to the truth of Remy de Gourmont's epigram: "Religion est l'hôpital de l'amour." Love, however, does not play a major rôle in his life or art, yet it permeates both, in a sultry, sensual manner.
Indeed, it was not until about the year 1865 that the real clew was discovered which gave the same impetus to pathology that the demonstration of the germ theory of disease gave at about the same time to etiology, or the study of causes of disease.
And he adds: "I am of opinion that there is a "I am decidedly of opinion that the former has taken its place in the family of diseases as prominently as its twin-brother insanity; and, in my opinion, the day is not far distant when the pathology of the former will be as fully understood and as successfully treated as the latter, and even more successfully, since it is more within the reach and bounds of human control, which, wisely exercised and scientifically administered, may prevent curable inebriation from verging into possible incurable insanity."
Here he called out, "The new piece has fallen flat, and it deserved to fall flat; it wearied me to death. It is by Rousseau of Geneva, and I am that very Rousseau." The relentless student of mental pathology is very likely to insist that even this was egoism standing on its head and not on its feet, choosing to be noticed for an absurdity, rather than not be noticed at all.
Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience.
The eccentricities of inventors studied carefully and in a detailed manner would finally, perhaps, be most instructive material, because it would allow us to penetrate into their inmost individuality. Thus, the physiology of the imagination quickly becomes pathology. I shall not dwell on this, having purposely eliminated the morbid side of our subject.
Mere physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to doubt or criticism. The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical pathology to note.
In this way he was indirectly connected with the establishment of the Iatrochemical school. It was he who first used the word "gas" a word coined by him, along with many others that soon fell into disuse. The principles of the Iatrochemical school were the use of chemical medicines, and a theory of pathology different from the prevailing "humoral" pathology.
"The Black Service of Pathology," it said, "has announced that Black Doctor Hugo Tanner will enter Hospital Philadelphia within the next week for prophylactic heart surgery. In keeping with usual Hospital Earth administrative policy, the Four-star Black Doctor will undergo a total cardiac transplant to halt the Medical education administrator's progressively disabling heart disease."
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