Early years Mackenzie was born on 23 July 1905 in
Maungaturoto, New Zealand. His parents were John Henderson Mackenzie (2 July 1871 – 4 March 1961) and Agnes Masterton, both of whom were Scottish. John, born in
Edinburgh, was a minister of the
congregational church who was sent to New Zealand for missionary service between 1905 and 1914. Margaret, who adopted the surname Warwick on marriage, had worked in the
National Institute of Medical Research of
India. Mackenzie was educated at
Rutherford College in
Newcastle, England. Between 1930 and 1931, he worked briefly in the
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He served in that position for a decade and acted as the principal medical officer in several occasions. He was further promoted as Director of Medical Services in 1946 and was appointed an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1947. After six years of service, he was transferred to
Nigeria in 1955, succeeding
Dr P. S. Bell as Director of Medical Services,
Northern Nigeria. He was appointed a
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George when he was posted out in 1957. He took the office in January 1958. In addition, he was appointed the Unit Controller of the
Auxiliary Medical Services, an official member of the
Legislative Council, as well as the president of a number of non-governmental organisations, such as the
Hong Kong Tuberculosis, Chest and Heart Diseases Association and the
Mental Health Association of Hong Kong. On 21 March 1958, he was appointed an official
Justice of the Peace. At that time, infectious diseases such as
tuberculosis,
malaria,
diphtheria and
cholera were common in Hong Kong as the territory suffered from occasional droughts and there was a continuous, large influx of refugees arriving from
mainland China. In the slums on the outskirts of the city, where many refugees lived, there was no sanitised tap water and the overall public hygiene condition was poor, making things even worse. By 1961, as many as 80% of pregnant women who gave birth in hospital agreed to let their new-born babies receive BCG-vaccination within 48 hours. In 1961 and 1962, Hong Kong was twice badly hit by cholera epidemics, during which the city was declared an infected area by the government. The local economy was also badly affected. In a short period of time, the number of people receiving free vaccinations in the territory had grown to 2.5 million. A total of nine cases were diagnosed and only one death was recorded, fewer than in the neighbouring region. These conferences included the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation Cholera Research Laboratory Advisory Council meetings at
Dacca,
Pakistan (now in
Bangladesh), in March and November 1962, and the
World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee meetings at
Manila, the Philippines, in September 1962 and May 1963. Another major objective of Mackenzie during his time as Director of Medical and Health Services was to rapidly expand public-health services to satisfy ever-increasing public demand. Other public-health-development projects completed during his tenure included the
Sandy Bay Infirmary (now
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Fung Yiu King Hospital) in December 1962 and the
Kowloon Rehabilitation Centre in August 1963, etc. Furthermore, the foundation stones of
Tsuen Wan Adventist Hospital,
Li Po Chun Health Centre and the
Lions Clubs Government Maternal and Child Health Centre in
Kowloon City were laid by him in June, July and September 1963 respectively. In April 1963, it was announced that Mackenzie would retire and leave Hong Kong in September and would be succeeded by the deputy director,
Dr Teng Pin-hui. In September, he attended the Legislative Council meeting for the final time, in which he was thanked by the
Governor,
Sir Robert Black, for his performance in the past five and a half years. In October 1963, soon after his departure, Hong Kong was again hit by a minor cholera outbreak Mackenzie was the last non-Chinese person to hold the post of Director of Medical and Health Services of Hong Kong. All his successors were
ethnic Chinese.
Later years Mackenzie lived in retirement in the United Kingdom. Between 1965 and 1969, he was a visiting scientist under the Malaria Eradication Program of the
Communicable Disease Center at
Atlanta, Georgia, the United States. As a part of the Malaria Eradication Global Strategy of the
WHO, he also served as the WHO Consultant of the
Thailand Study Team from July to August 1968. He died in Cape Town on 19 March 1994, aged 88. Throughout his lifelong medical and academic career, he published research articles on cholera and other infectious diseases in academic journals, government reports and other publications. ==Personal life==