McMichael, Sir John (1904-1993)

John McMichael was born on 25 July 1904 at Gatehouse of Fleet in Kircudbrightshire, Scotland, the son of a butcher and small time farmer. After being educated at Kircudbright Academy he went on to study medicine at Edinburgh University, supported by several scholarships including the Ettles scholarship. In 1932 he travelled to London to work at University College Hospital as Beit memorial fellow.

The following year he won a gold medal from Edinburgh University for his MD thesis on liver and spleen fibrosis, and returned to work as a lecturer in human physiology there. In 1938 Sir Francis Fraser persuaded him to take up a post as Reader at the Hammersmith Hospital, leaving him in charge when he left to set up the Emergency Medical Service in 1939. In 1946 McMichael was appointed to succeed Fraser as Professor of Medicine, and turned the hospital into a world centre of medical research.

In 1966 he left Hammersmith to take up the post of Director of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, strongly supporting the creation of postgraduate teaching centres in large peripheral hospitals. By 1971 he had become disillusioned with the BPMF however, and frustrated at his lack of direct contact with those people the Federation had been set up to help.

Meanwhile, in 1960 McMichael had become a trustee of the Wellcome Trust, sponsored by Sir Henry Dale. This allowed McMichael to keep in touch with science whilst he helped the Trust to grow into a major source of grant support for biomedical research. In later years he became interested in the history of medicine and, based in an office at the Wellcome Institute, he studied the history of atrial fibrillation from the 17th century onwards and the role of dietary fat as a causative factor in atheroma and coronary heart disease.

In 1982 he suffered a severe stoke which left him unable to work, with some paralysis, a speech defect and an inability to read. Intensive rehabilitation led to some improvement, but it was the start of a long period of deterioration which continued until his death in 1993.

To find out more, please see the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for Sir John McMichael

PP/ARC/E is a file of material collected by McMichael on Arthur Robertson Cushny

PP/MLV/C/13/1/16 is a file of correspondence between McMichael and Marthe Vogt

PP/WDP/B/1/30 includes correspondence between McMichael and Sir William Paton

SA/FTC consists of the papers of the 1942 club, of which McMichael was a member