Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/236

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MacMillan
230
MacMillan

[q. v.], William Pitcairn [q. v.], and Matthew Baillie [q. v.], had been given by Baillie's widow to the College of Physicians, where it may still be seen, and its supposed biography is made the occasion of a most interesting account of the five physicians. An edition, with interesting notes, was published by Dr. Munk in 1884. In 1830, also without his name, he published a small volume, 'Lives of British Physicians,' containing biographies of Linacre, Caius, Harvey, Sir T. Browne, Sydenham, and Radcliffe, by himself, with twelve other lives by Dr. Bisset Hawkins, Dr. Parry, Dr. Southey, Dr. Munk, and Mr. Clarke. These lives have the same merit of style as the 'Gold-headed Cane;' they contain much information, and are never dry. His friendship with Sir Henry Halford led to his appointment in 1829 as physician extraordinary to the king, in March 1880 as librarian, and m May 1831 as physician in ordinary, but in spite of this powerful help his practice was never large. His first medical work was 'A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever, illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders' (London, 1822), in which he maintains that a single attack of scarlet fever is preventive however mild, and therefore suggests that it is desirable when one child of a family has the disease to let the others catch it. The book shows no great range of observation, and some readiness to arrive at conclusions too hastily. He also published 'A Brief Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Subject of Contagion, with some Remarks on Quarantine,' London, 1825; and 'Is the Cholera Spasmodica of India a Contagious Disease?' London, 1831. In 1837 he had an attack of paralysis, and retired from practice. He died at his residence, Maida Hill, London, on 10 Jan. 1839.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 182; Dr. MacMichael's interleaved copy of British Physicians in Library of College of Physicians; information from Dr. Munk; Works.]

N. M.


MACMILLAN, ANGUS (1810–1865), discoverer of Gippsland, Australia, born in Glenbrittle, Skye, in 1810, started at the age of nineteen for Australia to find work. After working on several sheep stations, the chief of which belonged to one McFarlane, he took employment under Lachlan McAlister in 1838.

Early in the following year he started, at McAlister's request, to look out for fresh stations, and after careful inquiry determined to explore to the south-west of Sydney. The natives had a tradition that a fine country lay there. In February 1839 he arrived at Curawang, a village of the Maneroo tribe of natives; and in May he provided himself with arms and provisions for four weeks, and set out with a black chief for companion. Four days later he reached the hill now known as the Haystack, from the top of which he had a bird's-eye view of the country which he wished to explore. His comrades, however, threatened his life, and he turned back without making any decisive discovery. But McAlister encouraged him to persevere, and in December 1839 he started again, and got further into the country; he was encamped on the Tambo river when Count Strzelecki's more regular exploring party came up with him on 7 March 1840. Subsequently on 9 Feb. 1841 he commenced a final effort to discover a road to the sea at Corner Inlet, in which he partly succeeded.

During the greater part of these two years, MacMillan endured much privation, and his sole aids to exploration were a pocket compass and a chart of the coast. He called the new country Caledonia Australis, but this name, like others which he gave, was superseded by the appellation Gippsland, given by Strzelecki. MacMillan's claim to public notice was recognised by a dinner given to him at Port Albert in March 1866. Eventually he settled down on a sheep-run of his own on the Avon, where he died in May 1865.

[McCombie's History of the Colony of Victoria, 1858, pp. 79, 80; Mennell's Dictionary of Australasian Biography.]

C. A. H.


MACMILLAN, DANIEL (1813–1857), bookseller and publisher, tenth child and third son of Duncan Macmillan, by Katherine, daughter of William Crawford, was born at Upper Corrie in the Island of Arran, 13 Sept. 1813. His grandfather, Malcolm, 'tacksman,' or foreman, on the 'Cock' farm, was of an old covenanting stock, allied to the Macmillans of Sanquhar and Arndarroch [see Macmillan, John]. His father migrated to Irvine in 1815, and tilled a small farm there until his death in 1823. Daniel was educated at the common school, and in 1824 bound to Maxwell Dick, bookseller and bookbinder, of Irvine, whence he moved in 1831 to Atkinson's shop at Glasgow. In 1833 he came to London a raw Scottish lad, who was unfavourably surprised to find that 'all he had read about a London Sunday' was 'quite true.' He visited 'the magnates' of Paternoster Row, but was not attracted by the conditions of a post offered him by Messrs. Simpkin & Marshall, and preferred to take service (on a salary of 30l.) with a Cambridge bookseller, Mr. Johnson, a serious man and a baptist