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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’œuvre. These fellowships were founded with the purpose of giving their holders the opportunity of travel 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 Henry Halford’s influence in professional and social circles in London was immense. His name was really Henry Vaughan. His father was a physician in Leicester, who devoted his entire income to the education of his seven sons, all of whom proved themselves worthy of the parental self-denial by the eminent positions which they subsequently obtained in the professions which they respectively adopted. Sir Henry, after graduating from Oxford, secured an advantageous social position for himself by his marriage to the daughter of Lord St. John of Bletsoe. He inherited a large property on the death of Lady Denbigh, the widow of his mother’s cousin, Sir Charles Halford, Bart., and by an act of Parliament, in 1809, changed his name from Vaughan to Halford. In the subsequent year he was made a baronet. He attended in a professional capacity George III, George IV and Queen Victoria, and after the death of Matthew Baillie, he had the largest and most fashionable practice in London.

Halford was the president of the College of Physicians of London from 1820 until his death in 1844, and it was during his presidency that the College was removed from Warwick Lane to Pall Mall East. Those who envied his position attributed his success to his courtly manners, and he was nicknamed “the eel-backed baronet.” The story is told that he galloped from the death bed of George IV out to Bushy Park in order that he might have the honor of being the first to inform William IV of the glad event. He was present at the opening of the coffin of Charles I, in 1813, and published an account of the proceedings on that occasion. J. F. Clarke, in his autobiography, accuses Halford, amongst other things, of retaining possession of part of the King’s fourth cervical vertebra through which the axe passed, and displaying it at his dinner table as an interesting curio.

Halford, in the words of Dr. Munk, “at the height of his success, and when his duties at Court were the most onerous, found it necessary to have in reserve some physician on whom he could implicitly rely, to act as his representative and substitute when such was needed. His choice fell on Dr. Macmichael, who, through Sir Henry’s influence, was appointed in rapid succession Physician Extraordinary to the King in 1829, Librarian to the King in 1830, in place of a very eminent physician, Dr. Gooch, recently deceased; and finally, in 1831, Physician in Ordinary to the King.”

Halford had been obliged to resign his position as physician to the Middlesex Hospital, owing to the pressure of other duties, as early as 1800; but it was probably due to his influence that twenty-two years later Macmichael was appointed to the same position. Macmichael was very active in the affairs of the College of Physicians, served among its officers on several occasions, and read a number of communications before it. He wrote various articles on contagion and infection, none of them possessing any great value. In spite of powerful backing and the important positions he held, Dr. Macmichael lacked the ambition or did not possess the aptitude to acquire a large practice.

In 1830 Macmichael published “Lives of British Physicians,” of which another edition was published by Thomas Tegg in 1846. Macmichael himself contributed to it the lives of Linacre, Caius, Harvey, Sir Thomas Browne, Sydenham and Radcliffe. The biographies of twelve other English medical worthies were contributed by Dr. Bisset Hawkins, Dr. Parry, Dr. Southey, Dr. Munk, and Mr. Clarke. The book is a small volume containing portraits of some of the more famous subjects. It was dedicated to Sir Henry Halford. Although not so happy in its conception and execution as the Gold-Headed Cane, this little work is a most valuable contribution to English medical literature. The lives are well written, accurate, and contain information much of which is derived from sources inaccessible to the general reader.

In 1837, at the age of fifty-three, Dr. Macmichael suffered a stroke of paralysis which obliged him to retire from professional life and he died two years later at his residence in Maida Vale. Sir Thomas Watson, the famous London Physician, was one of Dr. Macmichael’s friends who knew him many years. In 1878 Sir Thomas Watson wrote of him as follows, to Munk:[1] “Dr. Macmichael was fond of society, and qualified alike to enjoy and embellish it. Having travelled long and seen many cities and the manners of many men, he possessed a large stock of general information, was fertile in various and amusing anecdotes, and was wont to mix, with certain natural ease and grace, in lively and interesting discourse, without making his own share in it unduly prominent. His cheerfulness and equanimity of temper, and kindness of heart, endeared him to a large circle of devoted friends, of whom a very few only, at the time of this writing, survive to commemorate his engaging qualities and to regret his loss.”

Under Sir Henry Halford’s presidency the College of Physicians underwent a great awakening. It acquired, largely through his individual efforts, a splendid new home and he also originated the evening meetings which were henceforth held in the Hall. These were held once a month during the first six months of the year, at nine o’clock in the evening. Tea and coffee were provided. The meetings were attended not only by physicians, but by many persons of prominence in the various walks of life. The papers presented at them were, therefore, as a general rule, adapted to a mixed audience. They were not read by their authors, but by the Registrar of the College, except in the instance of the President, who was permitted to read such communications as he might wish to make himself. A great part of Sir Henry Halford’s success in these innovations was due to the active part taken by Macmichael in seconding his efforts in this as in every other way by which he could show his gratitude and aid his friend and benefactor. In nothing could he have succeeded better in awakening renewed interest in the venerable College than by directing attention to its past history and to the achievements of the illustrious men who had been connected with it. It was probably this desire which led Macmichael to utilize his erudite knowledge of the subject in the compilation of the fascinating book to which he gave the name of “The Gold-Headed Cane.”

The new College was opened on the 25th of June, 1825. According to its veracious autobiography, on the previous day the Cane was deposited in a corner closet of the new building, “with the observation that I was no longer to be carried about.” The Gold-Headed Cane now occupies a glass case in the Library of the College, where it may have the consolation of feeling that it is gazed on by many visitors who have read its history and been stimulated by it to wish a close view of the author.

The Cane was carried successively by Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn and Baillie, and bears their various arms engraved upon its head. It was presented to Sir Henry Halford by Dr. Baillie’s widow and he in turn placed it in the College.

Dr. Macmichael’s happy inspiration to write its autobiography was carried into effect at the time when the enthusiasm of the Fellows at the acquisition of their splendid new hall was at its height. The first edition was published in 1827, and a second edition in the succeeding year. A third edition, edited by Dr. William Munk, was published in 1884, forty-five years after Macmichael’s death.

The cane in ancient days was regarded as an essential part of the equipment of every physician. Dr. Munk, in the third edition of the Gold-Headed Cane, adverts to this fact and also explains the origin of the custom. The cane usually carried by physicians had for its head a knob of gold, silver or ivory, which was hollow, and perforated so that it served to contain aromatic preparations which could be inhaled as a preventive of contagion. The favorite preparation for this purpose was the “vinegar of the four thieves,” or Marseilles Vinegar, an aromatic vinegar which, according to the confession of four thieves (who had, during a plague at Marseilles plundered the dead bodies) had prevented them from contracting the disease while pursuing their nefarious occupation.

The Gold-Headed Cane was adorned by a cross bar for a top instead of a knob, a fact which Munk explains by the statement that Radcliffe, its first owner, was a rule unto himself, and very possibly preferred a handle of that kind for his cane as a distinction from that used by the majority of physicians.

With its passage from the possession of Dr. Pitcairn into that of Dr. Baillie, the Cane pathetically states: “I ceased to be considered any longer as a necessary appendage of the profession, and consequently the opportunities I enjoyed of seeing the world, or even of knowing much about the state of physic, were very greatly abridged, and of but rare occurrence.”

With the account of Baillie and the state of physic in his time the Cane ceased its autobiography and regarded its honorable career as closed. Dr. Munk, in the third edition, published in 1884, wrote a continuation of the narrative in very good imitation of Macmichael’s style, which brought the story down to the year 1871.

The publication of a new edition of a medical and literary classic such as the Gold-Headed Cane requires no apologia. The three previous editions are now all of them so difficult to obtain, the book so eagerly sought for, and its perusal productive of so much profit and pleasure, that the demand is obvious.

The medical profession in Great Britain and America owe the present undertaking entirely to the unselfish zeal of the Publisher, whose love and admiration for the merits of the Cane prompted him to undertake a venture from which in a commercial point of view no profit can be expected.

The present edition follows the text and illustrations contained in the second edition, which was chosen for reprinting because it was revised, added to and published by the author himself. The first edition contained 179 pages. To the second edition Dr. Macmichael added 88 pages of text, which contain much of the very best of his work. The third edition contained no illustrations, and although the continuation of the narrative is most interesting, it is not Macmichael’s and therefore not the Cane’s.

It is to be hoped that with the recent great stimulation of interest in medical history which the profession in this country has shown this little volume will achieve the same popularity as its predecessors and add more lustre to the glory of the Cane.

Francis R. Packard.

Philadelphia,

March, 1915.