From NYTimes Obituary: "Dr. Alexander Thompson, of Aurora. Cayuga County lost on Tuesday one of its ablest, most useful and most generous citizens by the death of Dr. Alexander Thompson, at the age of 59 years. He was a son of Dr. John Thompson, of Cambridge, Washington County, and was born in that town on the 2d of May, 1810. He entered Union College at the age of 16, and after graduation studied medicine, first with his father, and then under the guidance of that able physician, Dr. John B. Beck, Professor of Materia Medica and Botany at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this City. In 1832, while he was yet a student, the terrible scourge, cholera, fell upon the City. Unitedly the noble-hearted and self-sacrificing physicians of the City sought to stay its ravages, and foremost among them was this young student. It has been said of him that he almost lived in the cholera hospitals. His skill, his devotion and his constant attention drew many away from the reluctant hand of death. In 1833, having completed his studies, he commenced the practice of his profession in Aurora. In this he was eminently successful, rapidly gaining experience and enlarging the sphere of his professional duties He was long a leading member of the State Medical Society, and in 1855 was its President. The constitution of the Society does not permit a reelection. He has been one of the most public-spirited citizens of Aurora, and any movement calculated to advance its interests found in him a ready co-worker. He has twice married, his first wife being a daughter of Eleazer Burnham, of Aurora, to whom he was married in 1834, and who died in 1842. In 1852 he married Miss Mary L. Root, daughter of the late Lyman Root, of Albany, who survives him. The messenger of death found him in the active pursuit of his profession. On Tuesday he prescribed for a friend in his office, and as that friend arose to go he requested him to remain, saying: "I do not feel well to-day; sit down, I wish to talk with you." The friend advised him to return hem, and he stepped out upon the walk, but was quickly seized with faintness, and fell into his friend's arms. He was borne to his house, and there, under the administration of restoratives, revived. Calmly he made a diagnosis of the disease, directed his wife to go to one of the bookcases in the office, describing its location, and giving the title of a book he wished to consult. When she returned, he told her the page on which she would find a case analogous to his, and asked her to "read it." Then he prescribed for himself, and, calmly and collected, watched the effect. The remedies not producing the desired effect, at 5 o'clock he announced that all was in vain; that is illness was mortal. Almost immediately hemorrhage commenced, convincing the anxious watchers that all was indeed vain, that the physician had read his own case, as that of a hundred others in a long practice, correctly. But, hoping against hope, his friends telegraphed for the most able physicians in the county, who arrived to find the eyes of their brother closed in death. At 8:20, in full possession of his faculties, he expired."