# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mackness, James

​MACKNESS, JAMES, M.D. (1804–1861), medical writer, born 31 March 1804, was elder son of a tradesman at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, who afterwards removed to Edinburgh, where James was partly educated. After pursuing his professional studies under great difficulties, he passed the College of Surgeons on 22 Dec. 1824; acted for a time as assistant; and in 1827 set up in practice for himself in the village of Turvey, near Bedford. In 1831 he removed to Northampton, where he gained by degrees an extensive, but laborious and not very remunerative, practice. He continued to study, and interested himself in various plans for the improvement of the middle and lower classes; but in 1834 his health began to fail, and in 1837 he was obliged for a time to give up practice altogether. He passed two years in different places abroad and in England. In order to qualify himself for the less laborious practice of a physician he obtained a medical degree at St. Andrews, 15 May 1840, and settled at Hastings, where he passed the rest of his life. Owing to his energy and perseverance, and also to his great liberality and benevolence, he gradually, although with difficulty, acquired a good practice. In November 1840 he was appointed physician to the Hastings Dispensary. In January 1843 he became an extra-licentiate of the London College of Physicians. In the next year he joined the Provincial (now called the British) Medical and Surgical Association, and he afterwards (1847) was elected a member of the council. He attended the annual meetings of the association with great regularity. In 1849 he was one of a committee of five members 'appointed to consider the means advisable to be adopted with a view to bring the subject of medical ethics before the medical profession;' and in 1850, on the occasion of the association holding its next annual meeting at Brighton, he was requested to prepare a paper on the medical topography of the district. He was a devout member of the church of England, but his chief interest was in benevolent schemes for improving the condition of the poorer classes. He took an active part in the municipal management of Hastings, and became an alderman. In the spring of 1849 he took a few weeks' holiday on the Rhine, but illness, from which he never wholly recovered, compelled him to return home. He died of pneumonia on 8 Feb. 1851, and was buried in the old St. Mary's cemetery (now disused). Here there is a handsome tomb erected to his memory by a subscription among his friends and patients, including some of the working classes. He married in 1830 Miss Maria Whitworth of Turvey, who still survives. He had no family, but was most liberal in providing for his brother's children.
Mackness wrote:
* 'Hastings considered as a Resort for Invalids,' &c, London, 12mo, 1842; second edition, 1850.
* An article on agricultural chemistry in Baxter's 'Library of Agriculture,' London, 8vo, 1846.
* 'The Moral Aspects of Medical Life,' London, small 8vo, 1846; based on a work in German by Professor K. F. H. Marx called 'Akesios' (1844).
* 'Dysphonia Clericorum, or Clergyman's Sore Throat: its Pathology, Treatment, and Prevention,' London, 8vo, 1848, 'containing a better account of the disorder in question than had yet been laid before the British public' (Brit. and For. Med.-Chir. Rev. ii. 227).
[Memorials by Miss M. M. Howard, 1851 'Lancet, 1851, ii. 196; Med. Times, new ser. iii. 492-3; Brit, and For. Med. Rev. xxiii. 467; Brit, and For. Med-Chir. Rev. viiL 632; personal knowledge and recollection.]
W. A. G.