BRUCE MCVEAN MACKALL

Bruce McVean Mackall was born in Washington, D.C., in 1881. His medical degree was granted by the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1903. Following graduation he became resident at the Washington government hospital where he was in charge of the mental ward.

Later he was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Public Health Service and was stationed at Portland, Maine, where he was also engaged in private practice. By 1904 he was surgeon aboard the S.S. "Alameda", and in January, 1905, he accepted the position of physician for the Kahuku Plantation on Oahu. Resigning as plantation doctor in November, 1906, Dr. Mackall moved into Honolulu to take over the practice of Dr. William Mays, who was leaving the Islands.

Dr. Mackall was married to Mrs. Bessie E. Mackall. A daughter, Miriam McVean, was born to the Mackalls while they were at Kahuku.

In May, 1909, the Board of Health appointed Dr. Mackall Dispensary Physician at the salary of $150 per month. Some months later the Board created the position of City Physician which took the place of Dispensary Physician, with the understanding that the city would pay half the salary and the Board the other half. What actually happened was that the city paid the entire salary and the Board of Health supplied the medicines used. Eventually, the Board felt that Dr. Mackall was dispensing medicines much too freely and replaced him with their own doctor. Dr. Mackall continued, however, to hold the position of City Physician, and this did not make for harmonious relations between the doctor and the Board of Health. Overlapping authority between city government and the Board of Health compounded the trouble.

Matters came to a head over the inspection of Honolulu poi shops when unsanitary conditions in the shops were believed to be the cause of an outbreak of cholera. Both the Board of Health officials and the City Physician made separate inspections, and Dr. Mackall allowed 19 of the shops to reopen after they had been closed by order of the Board of Health. When a measure to give the Board supreme authority in such cases was defeated in the Senate, Dr. Mackall seemed to have the upper hand. However, when a new case of cholers was reported and the Board of Health was able to prove to the satisfaction of the legislators that the source of the disease was one of the poi shops originally closed on its order but reopened by the City Physician, the Senate rushed through three bills which gave final authority in such cases to the Board. Although Dr. Mackall insisted that the death in question was not due to cholera but to rotgut whiskey, the charges raised as to the manner in which he ran his department and his lavish expenditure of funds had done their damage and the Board of Supervisors accepted his resignation on April 14, 1911.

In November of that year Dr. Mackall left for the Mainland to look over a tentative position in Idaho and is next heard from as a surgeon aboard the Pacific Mail steamers. In 1914 he went to Korea as medical director for the Colbrun concessions, a large mining concern with properties in the Far East.

Mrs. Mackall remained in Honolulu when the doctor left and opened a studio for voice training. In 1916 she divorced him.

During World War I, Dr. Mackall was in service. By 1920 he had rejoined the Public Health Service and was stationed in New Orleans, and the 1923 Medical Directory listed him as practicing in Ruthton, Minnesota. From January, 1930, to July, 1931, he was a physician on the staff of the Colorado State Hospital for nervous and mental cases at Pueblo.

Dr. Mackall died May 1, 1933, at Washington, D.C., at the age of 51.

While he was at Georgetown University he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, and in Honolulu he belonged to the Hawaii Medical Society and to the Court of Camoes, Ancient Order of Foresters.

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