Hector Mackenzie was born at Edinburgh, the son of J. Urquart Mackenzie, and graduated with first-class honours at Edinburgh University. He then won a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where, as fifth wrangler in 1880, he was elected to a fellowship. He entered St. Thomas’s Hospital as a medical student in 1882, won several prizes, including the Mead medal for clinical medicine, and qualified in 1884. He then held the normal junior posts at his own Hospital and was elected assistant physician to the Royal Free and Brompton Hospitals. In 1893, he obtained the same appointment at St. Thomas’s, where he became, in 1900, full physician and, in 1919, consulting physician, and lectured on pharmacology, therapeutics and medicine. Mackenzie also served on the staffs of the King Edward VII Sanatorium and the Samaritan Hospital, and during the 1914-1918 War was attached to the 2nd London General Hospital. His connection with the Royal College of Physicians was distinguished; he was Bradshaw Lecturer (1916), Censor, and Lumleian Lecturer (1922). He examined in medicine for the Conjoint Board and the I.M.S. Mackenzie, who was knighted in 1923, was an authority in his day on diseases of the thyroid gland. Professionally he was a somewhat taciturn, remote individual, but in congenial company revealed a lovable, charming side to his character. He was a musician and linguist of accomplishment and read widely; he loved the sea and greatly enjoyed skating. He married in 1890 Emma Newcombe, widow of Septimus Marsden of Holderness, but left no children. He died at Upper Brook Street, London.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1929; B.M.J., 1929; Presidential Address to R.C.P., 1929, 33]