Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Micklethwaite, John
MICKLETHWAITE, Sir JOHN, M.D. (1612–1682), physician, son of Thomas Micklethwaite, rector of Cherry Burton, Yorkshire, was born in 1612 and baptised, 23 Aug., in the church of Bishop Burton, three miles from Beverley. He entered at the university of Leyden as a medical student 15 Dec. 1637 (Peacock, Leyden Students, p. 68), and took the degree of M.D. at Padua in 1638. He proceeded M.D. by incorporation at Oxford 14 April 1648. On 26 May 1643 he was appointed assistant physician at St. Bartholomew's Hospital to Dr. John Clarke, whose eldest daughter he married, and he was elected physician 13 May 1653. The Long parliament, 12 Feb. 1644, had recommended him for promotion, 'in the place of Dr. Harvey, who hath withdrawn himself from his charge and is retired to the party in arms against the Parliament.' He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians 11 Nov. 1643, and delivered the Gulstonian lectures in 1644. He was elected censor seven times, was treasurer from 1667 to 1675, and president from 1676 to 1681. When Charles II in 1681 was taken ill at Windsor, he was sent for by order in council, and attained much repute by his treatment of the king, on whose recovery he was knighted. He was physician in ordinary to the king. He died of acute cystitis 29 July 1682, and was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, where his monument, with a long inscription, still remains. His death and achievements were celebrated in a broadside, 'An Elegy to commemorate and lament the Death of the most worthy Doctor of Physick, Sir John Micklethwaite.' His portrait, representing him in a flowing wig, was given to the College of Physicians by Sir Edmund King [q. v.], and hangs in the dining-room.
[St. Bartholomew's Hospital Manuscript Minute Books; C. Goodall's Historical Account of the College's Proceedings against Empirics, 1684; Elegy published by William Miller at the Guilded Acorn in St. Paul's Churchyard; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 237; Willis's Life of Harvey, p. 175.]