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Sir Morell MacKenzie

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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SIR MORELL MACKENZIE (1837-1892), British physician, son of Stephen Mackenzie, surgeon (d. 1851), was born at Leytonstone, Essex, on the 7th of July 1837. After going through the course at the London Hospital, and becoming M.R.C.S. in 1858, he studied abroad at Paris, Vienna and Pesth; and at Pesth he learnt the use of the newly-invented laryngoscope under J. N. Czermak. Returning to London in 1862, he worked at the London Hospital, and took his degree in medicine. In 1863 he won the Jacksonian prize at the Royal College of Surgeons for an essay on the "Pathology of the Larynx," and he then devoted himself to becoming a specialist in diseases of the throat. In 1863 the Throat Hospital in King Street, Golden Square, was founded, largely owing to his initiative, and by his work there and at the London Hospital (where he was one of the physicians from 1866 to 1873) Morell Mackenzie rapidly became recognized throughout Europe as a leading authority, and acquired an extensive practice. So great was his reputation that in May 1887, when the crown prince of Germany (afterwards the emperor Frederick III.) was attacked by the affection of the throat of which he ultimately died, Morell Mackenzie was specially summoned to attend him. The German physicians who had attended the prince since the beginning of March (Karl Gerhardt, and subsequently Tobold, E. von Bergmann, and others) had diagnosed his ailment on the 18th of May as cancer of the throat; but Morell Mackenzie insisted (basing his opinion on a microscopical examination by R. Virchow of a portion of the tissue) that the disease was not demonstrably cancerous, that an operation for the extirpation of the larynx (planned for the 21st of May) was unjustifiable, and that the growth might well be a benign one and therefore curable by other treatment. The question was one not only of personal but of political importance, since it was doubted whether any one suffering from an incapacitating disease like cancer could, according to the family law of the Hohenzollerns, occupy the German throne; and there was talk of a renunciation of the succession by the crown prince. It was freely hinted, moreover, that some of the doctors themselves were influenced by political considerations. At any rate, Morell Mackenzie's opinion was followed: the crown prince went to England, under his treatment, and was present at the Jubilee celebrations in June. Morell Mackenzie was knighted in September 1887 for his services, and decorated with the Grand Cross of the Hohenzollern Order. In November, however, the German doctors were again called into consultation, and it was ultimately admitted that the disease really was cancer; though Mackenzie, with very questionable judgment, more than hinted that it had become malignant since his first examination, in consequence of the irritating effect of the treatment by the German doctors. The crown prince (see FREDERICK III.) became emperor on the 9th of March 1888, and died on the r5th of June. During all this period a violent quarrel raged between Sir Morell Mackenzie and the German medical world. The German doctors published an account of the illness, to which Mackenzie replied by a work entitled The Fatal Illness of Frederick the Noble (1888), the publication of which caused him to be censured by the Royal College of Surgeons. After this sensational episode in his career, the remainder of Sir Morell Mackenzie's life was uneventful, and he died somewhat suddenly in London, on the 3rd of February 1892. He published several books on laryngoscopy and diseases of the throat.