William Gilman Thompson

Physician

Centurion, 1892–1927

Proposed by
Francis P. Kinnicutt and James A. Roosevelt

born December 25, 1856
New York (Manhattan), New York

died October 27, 1927
New York (Manhattan), New York

elected February 6, 1892
Age thirty-five

buried Green-Wood Cemetery,
Brooklyn, New York

proposer of

seconder of

Member portrait of William Gilman Thompson — Member Photograph Albums CollectionAlbum 8, Leaf 25

To inquire about image use and/or publication, contact the Archivist.

Century Memorial

The outstanding service of William Gilman Thompson to the medical profession was his introduction into hospital work of the principle of “re-education.” Experience and observation had taught him that there might be a future both of usefulness and happiness for the “chronic incurables” among hospital patients, but that to leave them to shape their own destiny was mere needless cruelty. The opportunity for demonstrating his own solution of the problem came with the physical wreck and destruction of the war. He then organized his clinic for functional reeducation, expanding it after the war into the Reconstruction Hospital, where chronic sufferers, often refused admission to a regular hospital, were taught to acquire a craft by which they could occupy and support themselves. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value to the great body of afflicted patients of this humane reform.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1928 Century Association Yearbook

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