Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306:reg:20:p1
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Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 20 (pt 1/2)
Character Range: 49016–51980

20   Anon., 'MacKenzie, Sir William Colin', Australian Encyclopaedia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1958, vol. 5, pp. 434-5; Monica MacCallum, 'MacKenzie, Sir William Colin', Australian Dictionary of Biography [hereafter ADB], vol. 10, p. 306.

Figure 2: Professor Sir Colin MacKenzie by William B. McInnes, 1928–1938 (National Museum of Australia)

  According to MacKenzie's own testimony, the origins of the Institute of Anatomy lay in the epidemic of infantile paralysis that afflicted Melbourne in 1908. Infantile paralysis was the classical form of poliomyelitis in which the virus invaded the spinal cord and caused weakness, paralysis and wasting of muscles, often with resulting deformity.; During a visit to Britain and the Continent in 1903–4, MacKenzie had studied orthopaedics, the treatment of deformities arising from disease or injury of the bones and joints. With the outbreak of the 1908 poliomyelitis epidemic, MacKenzie found his orthopaedic skills in demand from patients who wanted effective treatment. Basing his work on methods he had learned both in Australia and overseas, he gradually evolved his own unique technique for treating the disease. The treatment involved making use of the patient's remaining muscle power to promote movement and minimise deformity.21

  In the course of his clinical work, MacKenzie began to develop his own idiosyncratic theories about the scientific basis of muscle function and pathology. In his view, the pathological changes to tissue seen in such diseases as poliomyelitis could not be understood by comparison with tissue samples taken from humans who were apparently undiseased. This was because the human race, according to MacKenzie, had been physically corrupted 'over centuries' by alcohol, syphilis and other poisons, to such an extent that one could not reliably obtain from any one individual a sample of normal, pristine tissue. In like manner, valid comparisons could not be made with so-called 'normal' tissue from commonly-used laboratory animals – dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs – because they had been so denaturalised by domestication. MacKenzie believed instead that the complexities of the human body, and especially muscle function, could only be properly understood by studying the relevant anatomical parts in their simplest and purest form. Such parts were only to be found among the native Australian mammals which had lived in a natural, unpolluted environment for millions of years. As MacKenzie saw it, these mammals were the 'key animals of the world' in their potential for playing a crucial role in the solution of human muscle problems. From these somewhat esoteric beliefs, the Institute of Anatomy was later to acquire its distinctive architectural embellishments of figures of Australian fauna.22

  As MacKenzie also believed that the native Australian mammals were doomed to extinction within a very short time, he began to assemble from 1912 a massive collection of