Harold Wolferstan Thomas (1875–1931) was a Canadian doctor, noted for his research in the field of tropical medicine.

Early life

Harold Wolferstan Thomas was born in 1875 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, the son of the banker Francis Wolferstan Thomas (1834-1900) and his wife Harriet Amelia Thomas (née Goodhue). He studied medicine at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

in Montreal until 1897.

Career

Thomas worked in Germany (including at

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

) and at the Montreal General Hospital. From 1903, he worked at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and from 1904 was head of a laboratory in Runcorn. In 1904 he took part in an expedition to study tropical diseases in the Amazon region. Along with

Anton Breinl Anton Breinl (2 July 1880 – 28 June 1944) was a medical practitioner and medical researcher, who established the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Early life Anton Breinl was born on 2 July 1 ...

(1880-1944), he discovered in 1905 that the

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

preparation

Atoxyl Arsanilic acid, also known as aminophenyl arsenic acid or aminophenyl arsonic acid, is an organoarsenic compound, an amino derivative of phenylarsonic acid whose amine group is in the 4-position. A crystalline powder introduced medically in the l ...

killed

trypanosomes Trypanosomatida is a group of kinetoplastid excavates distinguished by having only a single flagellum. The name is derived from the Greek ''trypano'' (borer) and ''soma'' (body) because of the corkscrew-like motion of some trypanosomatid species. ...

, the causative agent of sleeping sickness. The studies were performed by infecting laboratory animals such as mice, dogs and monkeys with

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense ''Trypanosoma brucei'' is a species of parasitic kinetoplastid belonging to the genus ''Trypanosoma'' that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclusively extracellu ...

and then using of Atoxyl to effect a cure or delay the progression of the disease.

Later life

Thomas died in 1931.

Works

* HW Thomas, A. Breinl: Report on trypanosomes trypasomiasis and sleeping sickness. In: Liverpool School of Med trop.. , Memoir 16 1905. * HW Thomas: Some experiments in the treatment of trypanosomiasis. In: ''British Medical Journal'' 1905; i: 1140th

Literature

* J. Procopio: Harold Wolferstan Thomas: Canadian scientist in medical service in the Amazon. In: Rev Bras Med 1953 May;. 10 (5): 371-4 . * Steven Miller Rieth: "From Atoxyl to Salvarsan: searching for the magic bullet". In: ''Chemotherapy''. 2005 August; 51 (5): 234-42.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Harold 1875 births 1931 deaths Canadian tropical physicians Physicians from Montreal Academics of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine