Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/758

NAME MC DILL 736 MACDONALD family in America. The McDills were of Scottish-Irish origin and were Presbyterians in religion. Hugh McDill and Roxanna Stuart left Broughshane, Ballymena Parish, county Antrim, Ireland, with their three sons and three daughters in 1793 with the intention of joining other members of the family in South Carolina but, their ship being captured by a French privateer, they were landed at Balti- more and from there proceeded to Wayne township, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, to live. Dr. McDill was born March 18, 1822, near Meadville, Pennsylvania. He received his preliminary education at Allegheny College and took his medical degree at the Western Reserve College of Medicine, then at Hudson, Ohio, graduating in 1848. For eight years he practised his profession with notable suc- cess in his native state. In 1856 he was per- suaded by an elder brother, Thomas H. Mc- Dill, to move to Wisconsin. The journey was made via the great lakes from Buffalo to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and thence to Plover, Portage county, by team, the horses and wagons having been brought with them. Dr. McDill settled at Plover and later at the town of McDill, between Plover and Stevens Point. He soon took a high rank in his pro- fession in middle Wisconsin, but the exigen- cies of the times naturally forced him into politics, and in 1862 he was elected to the assembly, and in the year following to the state senate; being in the legislature during the turbulent period of the Civil War, serv- ing on many commissions of relief. After the war he returned to his profes- sional work for a time and took up the char- itable and humanitarian work which fell upon the few men left — the care of the widows and orphans and the wrecks of the war, until or- ganized ai.d of state and government were in operation. He served from July, 1862. to 1868 as one of the trustees of the Wiscon- sin State Hospital for the Insane near Madi- son, in which he took so marked an interest that he was, in the latter year, placed at the head of the institution. In co-operation with Dr. N. A. Gray, of Utica, N. Y., and other prominent alienists, he succeeded in abolish- ing cruelty and other abuses of insane pa- tients, resorting to the courts when necessary; also through his efiforts the State Board of Charities and Reform was instituted as a philanthropic body to take the place of the former Board of Charities, which was con- cerned with the finances only of state insti- tutions; the distinguished men of the first board served at his personal solicitation. He was presidential elector in 1864; in 1872 he was elected to represent the Eighth Con- gressional District, then the northern half of the state, and resigned his position at the hospital in 1873; becoming weary of political life, on the expiration of his term, he again accepted the superintendency of the Wiscon- sin State Hospital for the Insane. He en- tered upon the duties of his office in April, 1875, resolving to devote the remainder of his life to relieving the unfortunate class whose peculiarities he had so long studied and in whose treatment he took so deep an interest; but his useful career was suddenly cut off, and he died of pneumonia after a brief ill- ness on November 12, 1875. Dr. McDill was a Mason of high rank, and a member of various medical and scientific organizations. He was an ardent and accom- plished botanist, and a great lover and stu- dent of both nature and of books. Com- bined with dignity of manner he observed a scrupulous nicety in matters of dress unusual in those days. On July 31, 1849, at Chathams Run, Clinton county, Pennsylvania, Dr. McDill married Eliza Jane Rich, a daughter of John and Rachel Rich, of what is now Woolrich, Clin- ton county, Pennsylvania. John R. McDill. Macdonald, Alexander (1784-1859) Alexander Macdonald was born on the Isle of Skye in 1784 and had his professional edu- cation at Edinburgh University, where he graduated M. D. in 1805. His early intention had been to enter the army, but having met with an accident — a broken leg — he was advised that he would never be able to endure the hardship of marching. He then turned to medicine in the hope that he might be able to join the army as a surgeon. But this he was not destined to do. Soon after graduation he was appomteu surgeon aboard an emigrant ship bound for Charlestown, Prince Edward Island. The captain was a very brutal fellow who ill- used the Highland emigrants in every pos- sible way, and was at constant feud with Dr. Macdonald and Col. Rankin, another cabin passenger, who tried to defend them. The captain made such fiendish threats as to what he would do to Dr. Macdonald on the return trip, when he would not have the Highlanders and Col. Rankin to help him, that the doctor had no desire to accompany this savage cap- tain on the return voyage. When Dr. Macdonald came to America he had a bill of e.xchange for 150 pounds, but