Thomas Jones Mackie, bacteriologist, was the son of James Mackie and Elizabeth Jones. He was educated at the Hamilton Academy and
continued his studies at the University of Glasgow. He was awarded the degrees
Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor in Surgery (ChB) with honours in 1910
and received the Brunton Memorial Prize as the best student of his year. For a
short time he worked as house-surgeon and house-physician at the Glasgow
Western Infirmary and then was awarded a Carnegie Scholarship which enabled him
to become a research scholar and fellow in pathology in the university's
Department of Pathology from 1911 to 1914. He obtained the Oxford Diploma in
Public Health in 1913 and worked as an assistant at the Bland-Sutton Institute
of Pathology at the Middlesex Hospital and Medical School, London, in 1914.
When World War I (1914-1918) broke out he was attached to the Royal Army
Medical Corps, serving mainly in the Middle East, and was appointed to the
command of the Central Bacteriological Laboratory in Alexandria, Egypt, with
the rank of captain.
At the conclusion of the war in 1918 Mackie was appointed as
the Wernher-Beit professor of bacteriology at the University of Cape Town.
While there he was awarded the degree Doctor of Medicine (MD) by the University
of Glasgow in 1921. Despite the fact that he did much routine diagnostic work
for New Somerset Hospital he was an active researcher. He was elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1920, was elected a member of its
council for 1923, and published several papers on immunity and syphilis in the
society's Transactions: 'Haemolysis
by serum in combination with certain benzol bodies' (1919/20, Vol. 8), 'A study
of the B.col group with special
reference to the serological characters of these organisms' (1921, Vol. 9), 'Observations
on the protective action of normal serum in experimental infection with Bacillus Diphtheria' (1922, Vol. 10),
and 'The serum constituents responsible for the Sachs-Georgi and Wasserman
reactions' (1924, Vol. 11). He also
completed a booklet, Bacteriological
methods (University of Cape Town, 1922, 39 pp.) and was one of the chief
planners of a full medical school at the university.
In 1923 Mackie accepted an appointment as professor of
bacteriology at the University of Edinburgh, a post he held to his death in
1955. From 1953 he served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine. During this
period he wrote An introduction to
practical bacteriology as applied to medicine and public health (with J.E.
McCartney. Edinburgh, 1925; 9th ed. with changed title, 1953). He
also continued publishing a total of some ninety papers in bacteriology, in
journals such as The Journal of Hygiene, British Journal of Experimental Pathology, Journal of Comparative Pathology and
Therapeutics, and The Lancet.
Mackie also served as honorary bacteriologist and senior
consultant in bacteriology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, council member
of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, member of the Scientific
Advisory Committee of the Department of Health for Scotland and chairman of its
Infectious Diseases Subcommittee, member of the Agricultural Research Council,
director of the Animal Diseases Research Association of Scotland, chairman of
the Scottish Hill Farm Research Committee, and as examiner for several
universities. In recognition of his work he was honoured as Commander of the Order
of the British Empire (CBE) in 1942. The University of Glasgow awarded him an
honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1947. He was admitted as a Member of the
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh.
Mackie was married to Edith Warner, with whom he had a son
and a daughter.
