Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/759

NAME MAC DONALD 737 MAC DONALD the conditions of the country were such that he could not get it cashed. At last a man named Bannerman, a fellow countryman, told the doctor that he would get it cashed ; the bill was handed over to the volunteer broker and that was the last the doctor ever saw of Ban- nerman or the money. He was now in a strange land and penniless, and might have been in great distress but for the unstinted kindness he received from the Rev. Alexander Macdonald, of Arisaig, Nova Scotia, whom he had known in Skye. From Antigonish he went to Jamaica, where he practised for three years. While in Jamaica he had a severe attack of fever, in the delirium of which he tore up his diploma. He returned to Antigonish with the intention of going back to Scotland, but fell in love and married Charlotte, the eldest daughter of Daniel Harrington, and never returned to his native land. When Dr. Macdonald came to Antigonish the roads were mere bridle paths, the bridges were few and poor; when he got into practice he had an immense country to cover; long journeys had frequently to be made, often at night and in the severe storms of winter, and the hardships and dangers were terrible. Many stories are told of the doctor's hair- breadth escapes; how once one stormy win- ter's night when on horseback journeying to visit a patient some fifty miles distant, he and his horse fell over a snow-covered bluff on the seacoast, a perpendicular height of some sixty feet, kilhng the horse, and leaving the rider in a dangerous spot, from which he had much difficulty in extricating himself, and only after bravely battling with the storm all night did he again reach his home; an- other tale relates how, on one occasion, he was nearly carried out to sea by moving ice. His hardships were, perhaps, increased by his absent mindedness, and his consequent neglect of comforts in traveling. It is said that on coming home from a distant part of his professional field one cold winter's day, he remarked to his wife, on entering the house, that one of his feet was quite warm while the other was almost frozen. On pull- ing off his boots it was found that he had put two stockings on one foot and left the other bare. This peculiarity of absent-mind- edness led to much practical joking at his expense. On one occasion, some friends, find- ing his horse ready saddled at his office door, reversed the saddle and awaited results. Out came the doctor, and without noticing what had been done, he mounted and rode away. But if Dr. Macdonald was absentminded in unimportant matters, there are no stories of his being so in the treatment of his patients. In addition to a large practice, he filled many public positions. He was a justice of the peace, judge of the Court of Common Pleas, prothonotary surgeon of the Militia. He was a man of high professional attainment and sterling character, and his memory will long live in the county of Antigonish, where he died in 1859. ' The well-known W. H. Macdonald, M. D. (commonly known as "Dr. Bill"), was a son, and Dr. W. Huntley Macdonald, a grandson of Alexander Macdonald. Donald A. Campbell. MacDonald, James (1803-1849) James MacDonald was born at White Plains, New York, July 18, 1803. His father. Dr. Archibald MacDonald, a native of Scotland, came to America in childhood. James' first classical instructor was Isaac Hulse, who afterwards became a distin- guished surgeon in the navy. Subsequently he was sent to the academy at Bergen in New Jersey, then under the care of Mr. Thomas Gahagan. The profession of medicine was his own determinate choice, in opposition to the wishes of nearly all his friends. In 1821 he began the study of medicine in his native village with Dr. David Palmer, and after- wards was a pupil of Dr. David Hosack (q. v.) of New York, under whom he finished his medical studies. After several courses of lec- tures at the College of Physicians and Sur- geons in New York, he graduated March 29, 1825. Dr. MacDonald was appointed resident physician at the Bloomingdale Asylum, and soon the full responsibility of the institution devolved upon him. He remained there un- til the close of the year 1830, when he re- signed to enter upon general practice in New York. He was sent abroad for one year to visit the Old World asylums in 1831, and upon his return assumed charge of the Bloom- ingdale Asylum, where he remained until the autumn of 1837. He then resumed his general practice in New York, and was elected attending physi- cian of the New York Hospital. In 1841 he carried into execution a long- cherished plan to establish in association with his brother, Allen MacDonald, a private insti- tution for mental diseases. For this purpose two houses agreeably situated on Murray Hill, then in the suburbs of New York, sur- rounded with ample grounds and shut out from public view by high enclosures, were at