Author: Macnish, Robert
Biography:
MACNISH, Robert (1802-37: ODNB)
Surgeon and writer. He was born at Glasgow to Christian (Johnstone Kerr) and John William Macnish. Both his grandfather and his father were surgeons. He was sent to the Rev. Alexander Easton of Hamilton to be educated—later he remembered his schooldays as a time of drudgery and frequent floggings—before attending the University of Glasgow where he earned his CM (Magister Chirurgiae) in about 1820. He travelled to Caithness to join a rural medical practice but left after eighteen months for health reasons. During his time in the Highlands, he began publishing poetry in the Inverness Journal. A year spent in Paris introduced him to phrenology which became a lifelong fascination. After his return to Glasgow, he began seriously developing his literary career by publishing in periodicals, using the byline “The Modern Pythagorean” (including his supernatural tale “The Metempsychosis” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine) and completed the examinations for licensing with the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons (1825). Anatomy of Drunkenness, his best-known work, was published in 1827 and considers the psychological and social effects of alcohol. In 1829 he suffered a mysterious illness with fever, acute light sensitivity, and nervous symptoms; this was to recur throughout the remainder of his life and caused him to appear prematurely aged. Despite this, he remained active: Philosophy of Sleep, which he worked on during the first bout of illness, appeared in 1830; he went to Edinburgh in 1833 to study phrenology and allowed himself to be analysed; was on a tour of Europe in 1835; helped William Motherwell (q.v.) in editing the Glasgow Courier; continued writing and publishing; and accepted an honorary Doctor of Laws from Hamilton College, Clinton NY. He died at Glasgow after suffering chest pains and fever which led to a coma. David Macbeth Moir (q.v.), co-author of Angels and Spirits, wrote the prefatory memoir and edited his posthumous The Modern Pythagorean: A Series of Tales, Essays, and Sketches (1838; reissued 1844). The memoir reprints the text of Angels and Spirits and identifies the lines contributed by Moir. (ODNB 30 Apr 2020; D. M. Moir, “The Author’s Life”)
Other Names:
- R. MacNish