Samuel Thomson (9 February 1769 - 5 October 1843) was the founder of the "Thomsonian System" of medicine.

He was born in Alstead, Cheshire Co., New Hampshire, the son of John Thomson (1744-1820) and his wife, formerly Hannah Cobb.

He practiced his profession in Surry and the adjoining towns. During the first half of the 19th century his system had numerous followers, including some of his sons.

He married Susanna Allen on July 7, 1790 in Keene. They had eight children. An herbalist who treated his wife taught some of her methods to Thomson, who came to believe that cold was an important cause of illness and who treated disease by restoring the body's natural heat; his methods for doing this included steam baths, cayenne pepper, and causing emesis by administration of Lobelia. After practicing this form of medicine for about ten years, Thomson wrote his New Guide to Health; or Botanic Family Physician in 1822, and sold "patents" to use his system of medicine to any family for $20. He sold over 100,000 patents by 1840.

His system of medicine appealed to the egalitarian anti-elitist sentiments of Jacksonian America, and families far from established towns came to rely on it. It was part of an overall movement away from the harmful and ineffective (but prevalent) treatments of bleeding and purging. A breakaway movement by Alva Curtis (who created the "Independent Thomsonian Medical Society", training practitioners and breaking Thomson's monopoly) helped spread the system; Curtis dubbed his followers "physio-medical" or "physio-pathic" practitioners. These practitioners in turn gave rise to the "Eclectic Medicine" movement.

Thomson died in Boston, Massachusetts.

See also: Alternative Medicine