The centennial of Dr. Harry G. Mackid

Alberta's first Canadian Medical Association president

April 27, 2015

^{Contributed by: Dr. J. Robert Lampard}

Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the death of Alberta’s first Canadian Medical Association (CMA) president (1911-12), Dr. Harry G. Mackid (1858-1916). It also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Mackid Symposium (1966-2016). What better time to acknowledge Dr. Mackid’s – albeit shortened from diabetes – life. It ended six years before another Albertan, Professor Dr. James B. Collip, isolated and concentrated the first therapeutic dose of insulin.

Dr. Mackid was Alberta’s most illustrious early medical pioneer. He was big, handsome and like many colleagues, wore a mustache to give him a more mature appearance. He had a warm smile and a handshake you remembered for a lifetime. Friendship and hospitality were his religion. Always well groomed, he filled any room with his buoyant, dignified presence and aura of confidence.

His many stories were always peppered with good humor. And he was generous to a fault.

Dr. Mackid was a self-taught surgeon who supplemented his experience with trips to Europe. He personally knew many of the senior surgeons of his day and once declined an offer to join the Mayo Clinic.

“H.G.” as he was affectionately known, came to Calgary (population 3,400) from Ontario in 1889. He was its fifth physician, joining Dr. James D. Lafferty in practice. Together they secured the medical care contract for the workers constructing the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) from Fort Macleod to Edmonton.

To prepare for the anticipated typhoid cases, Drs. Neville Lindsay and Mackid opened the first Calgary Cottage Hospital in 1890 with eight to 12 cots. After Lafferty successfully ran for mayor in 1890, Mackid continued as the CPR’s chief medical officer for the rest of his life, initially covering Alberta and Saskatchewan.

As soon as the railway was opened, Dr. Robert G. Brett, Dr. George A. Kennedy and others began referring their patients to him from as far as 100 miles away, for major and then abdominal surgery. Not infrequently they came with the patient and assisted at surgery.

In 1891 Dr. Mackid admitted the first patient – a nosebleed – to the newly opened Holy Cross Hospital.

By 1894 the cottage hospital was too small. Dr. Mackid fostered public interest in a new 35-bed hospital and it opened in 1895. Mrs. Mackid fundraised to help equip it. H.G. admitted the first patient – with typhoid fever.

Two years after his arrival, Dr. Henry George sought his advice to confirm the presence of smallpox in a Chinese laundryman, who had just arrived from Vancouver. All 45 contacts were quarantined. Trains were stopped and searched before they reached Calgary. Four of the eight diagnosed cases died. When the quarantined patients were discharged, Calgary’s only race riot occurred.

As soon as the new Calgary General Hospital (CGH) opened, Dr. Mackid and his medical and nursing colleagues started the second nursing training program in Alberta, following the lead two years earlier at the Medicine Hat Hospital in 1894. Mary Moone, registered nurse graduated in 1898 as the first CGH nurse.

In 1904, H.G. was joined in practice by his son Dr. Ludwig Stuart (L.S.) Mackid. The Mackid clinic would operate for decades.

In 1906, H.G. was the center of controversy over untendered medical contracts, one of which he held for the CPR. The Calgary Medical Society argued that these contracts should be open to competition. All were, except for the CPR contract. When the CPR vice president refused to open it, however, the argument ended.

A year later a CPR train brought Sir Ernest Waterloo to Calgary. Waterloo was the CPR’s London legal advisor. He had an acute abdomen, so the emergent call went out to H.G. He arrived at Waterloo’s railway car, made his diagnosis and recommended immediate surgery.

Sir Ernest retorted that “no colonial will operate on me.” Mackid pulled out his tape measure and began to measure Waterloo’s length, width and depth. Asked why, Mackid said it would be for the size of the coffin he would need for his body to be returned to England. The lawyer relented and underwent immediate surgery. The appendix burst in Mackid’s hands. Convalescence was in the Mackid home under Mrs. Mackid.

That same year Dr. Mackid saved the CGH from financial disaster. He introduced a 50 cent per month charge to all CPR employees for prepaid hospital care. The next year H.G. brought the first X-ray unit to Calgary.

With the formation of the American College of Surgeons, in 1913 Dr. Mackid submitted his credentials and became the first Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in Alberta. One of the major medical challenges he faced in the pre-antibiotic era was to minimize infections. In 1914 H.G. and L.S. aborted a typhoid epidemic of 300 cases by vaccinating large numbers of Calgarians.

Around town, Dr. Mackid had a reputation as a well-known (humorous) prankster, according to Bob Edwards of the Calgary Eye Opener. When H.G. met Mother Fulham in a downtown drugstore she complained of a sore foot. She took off her stocking to be examined. He exclaimed, “This has to be dirtiest leg in town.” She said, “I’ll bet you a dollar it isn’t.” The bet was on. So she pulled down her other stocking and won the bet. In return, he is reputed to have hitched her horses through her back fence.

For the last six years of his life, Dr. Mackid had diabetes. Despite his diagnosis, he was elected president of the CMA in 1911-12, the first from Alberta. He oversaw the integration of the one-year-old Canadian Medical Association Journal with CMA staff. During his elected year, local medical societies were encouraged to join the CMA and the membership increased by 33% to 1,400 members.

In his 1912 CMA retirement speech in Edmonton, Dr. Mackid accepted a motion to appoint Dr. Thomas G. Roddick as the honorary president of the CMA for the rest of his life. Roddick had led the fight to form the Medical Council of Canada. The motion was drowned out in a chorus of cheers and a standing ovation.

After 1913, H.G. cut back his operating time. That created an opportunity for Lethbridge surgeon Dr. Frank H. Mewburn to move to Calgary and work full time at it.

Dr. Mewburn would become the first professor of surgery at the University of Alberta in 1922.

When Dr. Mewburn and his son Ludwig went overseas in World War 1, H.G. went back to full-time practice.

On his 58th birthday in 1916, his wife went to waken him for his 10 a.m. surgical slate. He was unresponsive and never recovered.

Although now we don’t have to go to Europe for our continuing medical education, we can bask in the long shadow and 1913 prediction of one of Alberta’s most charismatic physicians: