Thomas Richard Fraser was born in Calcutta and graduated MD from Edinburgh in 1862. He was awarded a Gold Medal for his thesis on the actions and therapeutic use of the ordeal bean of Calabar, Physostigma venenosum. He was appointed Assistant to Sir Robert Christison in the materia medica department of the University of Edinburgh. In 1870 he became Lecturer on Materia Medica in the extramural school and served as Assistant Physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh from 1869 to 1874.
