The Gold headed cane and its author, William Macmichael / by Francis R. Packard.

  • Packard, Francis Randolph.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Gold headed cane and its author, William Macmichael / by Francis R. Packard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    THE GOLD HEADED CANE AND ITS AUTHOR, WILLIAM MACMICHAEL. By FRANCIS R. PACKARD, M. D. I have chosen for my theme this evening the life and works of one who was both-a physician and a librarian and who has preserved in two books, which his modesty caused him to publish anonymously, the most delightful record of the lives of some of the great English masters of medicine. To these books we are indebted for the perpetuation of some of the choicest stories which have become professional classics and for the preservation of lifelike portraits of some of the great men whose names adorn the medical annals of Great Britain. But for the labor of love of Dr. Macmichael these records would have been totally lost or buried in oblivion in scattered places, inaccessible save to the laborious searcher. William Macmichael, the author of the Gold Headed Cane, was born at Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, in 1784, and after receiving his education at the grammar school of that town, entered as a student at Christ Church, Oxford, where, after receiving his degree of Master of Arts in 1807, he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1816. In 1811, he was elected to the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which owed its foundation to the generosity of Dr. Radcliffe, about whom he writes so delightfully in his chef d’oeuvre. These fellowships were founded with the purpose of giving their holders the opportunity of travelling in foreign lands, and Dr. Macmichael passed several years journeying in Russia, Turkey, Greece and Palestine. That he was an observing and interested traveller is manifested in a little work which he published in London in 1819, entitled “A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, in the years 1817 and 1818.” He was, for a short time, physician to Lord Londonderry while the latter was ambassador to Vienna. He settled in London in the practice of medicine in 1818, and was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians of London in the same year. At the outset of his career as a practicing physician, he had the good fortune to secure the friendship of Sir Henry Halford, to whom the College was indebted for the gift of the Gold Headed Cane, which had descended to Sir Henry from the distinguished line of bearers about whom Macmichael centered its autobiography. Sir