Thomas Engall MRCS (13 May 1808 – 18 July 1887) was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. He was Surgeon at the West London Homeopathic Dispensary, Surgeon at the Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square, member of The British Homeopathic Society, member of The British Homeopathic Association and the Hahnemann Medical Society and the Hahnemann Publishing Society.

Thomas Engall practiced at 15 Euston Square and 67 Newman Street.

Thomas Engall was born in Kentish Town, London. His early occupation was a cabinet maker but in his thirties he made the decision to study medicine and received his licentiate from the Royal College of Surgeons in August 1843.

Engall was introduced to homeopathy by his friend John Epps who tutored him.

Engall also studied with controversial proto-Chiropractor Dr Edward Harrison (1759 – 1838) and, inspired by Harrison’s work,  set up an institution to treat spinal diseases with the assistance of his sisters.

Engall served as house surgeon for the West London Homoeopathic Dispensary at 67 Newman Street, Oxford Street.

Thomas Engall was an active member of the homeopathic community and attended the Homeopathic Congress in London in May 1856. He contributed articles to the Homeopathic press, including papers to The British Journal of Homeopathy on the “Gentle Treatment of Spinal Curvature.”

Engall was noted for his benevolence and philanthropy, striving for the improvement of the working classes. He was an advocate of Temperance, and he was a subscriber to The Band of Hope Union. He was also listed as a subscriber to The Religious Tract Society in 1863, and to The Queen’s Private Library, The Royal Library of Windsor.

Engall was also a member of The New Sydenham Society in 1859.

Engall married twice. Matilda Gibson, his wife of more than twenty years died in 1865. He later married Thulia Susannah Henderson (1819 – 1904).

Engall died at home on Lady Somerset Road, London, on 18 July 1887, from a “malignant disease of the liver.”

As a house surgeon there Thomas Engall knew the Staff of the Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square which included John Anderson, James Chapman, Edward Charles Chepmell, Paul Francois Curie, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, Joseph Hands, Amos Henriques, Robert Hamilton, Charles Hunt, Henry Kelsall, Joseph Laurie, Henry Victor Malan, James John Garth Wilkinson, David Wilson, William Leaf, George Wyld, Christian Karl Josias Bunsen, Thomas Egerton 2nd Earl of Wilton, Robert Grosvenor, Thomas Roupell Everest, Charles Powell Leslie, James More Molyneux, David Wilson, William Henry Ashurst, William Thomas Berger, W A Case, J M Douglas, G H Flatcher, John Fowler, Joseph Glover, Sydney Hanson, Thomas Higgs, T H Johnstone, John Miller, Chas Pasley, Mathias Roth, Frederick Sandoz, W Stephenson, Samuel Sugden, Allan Templeton, Major Tyndale, William Warne, A Wilkinson, S Wilson and many others.

Thomas Engall’s Obituary is in The Homeopathic World and The British Homeopathic Review in 1887.

Of interest:

Gary Bovine, John Russell Silver, Marie-France Weiner, “The role of Edward Harrison’s (1766-1838) disciples, Thomas Engall, John and George Epps, Charles Hoyland, John Evans Riadore, John Robinson and John Baptiste de Serney in the treatment of spinal deformity in the Victorian medical world,” Journal of Medical Biography 20.1 (Feb 2012): 18-24.