Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/MacMichael, William
MACMICHAEL, WILLIAM, M.D. (1784–1839), physician, son of a banker at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, was born in 1784, and, after education at the local grammar school, entered at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. 1806, M.A. 1807, M.B. 1808, and M.D. 1816. He was elected a Radcliffe travelling fellow in 1811 and made several journeys in Russia, Turkey, the Danubian principalities, and Palestine. In 1812 he visited Thermopylae, and suffered afterwards from intermittent fever for two years. He visited the ruins of Moscow in 1814, and in 1817 revisited the city. He travelled thence to Constantinople. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1818, and then began practice as a physician in London. In the following year he published 'Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the years 1817, 1818,' a quarto, illustrated by drawings of his own. In 1822 he was elected a censor of the College of Physicians, and was registrar from 1824 to 1829. He was again censor in 1832. He held the office of physician to the Middlesex Hospital from May 1822 to November 1831. In 1827 he published the 'Goldheaded Cane,' of which a second edition appeared in the following year. A cane bearing on its gold head the arms of John Radcliffe [q. v.], Richard Mead [q. v.], Anthony Askew [q. v.], William Pitcairn [q. v.], and Matthew Baillie [q. v.], had been given by Baillie's widow to the College of Physicians, where it may still be seen, and its supposed biography is made the occasion of a most interesting account of the five physicians. An edition, with interesting notes, was published by Dr. Munk in 1884. In 1830, also without his name, he published a small volume, 'Lives of British Physicians,' containing biographies of Linacre, Caius, Harvey, Sir T. Browne, Sydenham, and Radcliffe, by himself, with twelve other lives by Dr. Bisset Hawkins, Dr. Parry, Dr. Southey, Dr. Munk, and Mr. Clarke. These lives have the same merit of style as the 'Gold-headed Cane;' they contain much information, and are never dry. His friendship with Sir Henry Halford led to his appointment in 1829 as physician extraordinary to the king, in March 1880 as librarian, and m May 1831 as physician in ordinary, but in spite of this powerful help his practice was never large. His first medical work was 'A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever, illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders' (London, 1822), in which he maintains that a single attack of scarlet fever is preventive however mild, and therefore suggests that it is desirable when one child of a family has the disease to let the others catch it. The book shows no great range of observation, and some readiness to arrive at conclusions too hastily. He also published 'A Brief Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Subject of Contagion, with some Remarks on Quarantine,' London, 1825; and 'Is the Cholera Spasmodica of India a Contagious Disease?' London, 1831. In 1837 he had an attack of paralysis, and retired from practice. He died at his residence, Maida Hill, London, on 10 Jan. 1839.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 182; Dr. MacMichael's interleaved copy of British Physicians in Library of College of Physicians; information from Dr. Munk; Works.]