William Mackenzie (ophthalmologist)

William Mackenzie (born April 1791, died July 1868) was a Scottish opthalmologist. He wrote Practical Treatise of the Diseases of the Eye, one of the first British textbooks of ophthalmology.

Mackenzie was born in Queen Street, Glasgow, and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. From 1815 to 1818 he studied in London and continental Europe, returning to Britain in 1818. In 1819, he settled in Glasgow and began practice as a physician. With George Monteath, the chief oculist of Glasgow, he founded the Glasgow Eye Infirmary in 1824. He was appointed Waltonian lecturer and lecturer on diseases of the eye at the University of Glasgow in 1828, and wrote Practical Treatise of the Diseases of the Eye, which became a standard text after its first edition was published in 1830. This text may include the first discussion of the increase of pressure in the eye during glaucoma. Mackenzie also served as editor of the Glasgow Medical Journal for two years.

Selected publications

 * An appeal to the public and to the legislature, on the necessity of affording dead bodies to the schools of anatomy by legislative enactment, Glasgow: Robertson and Atkinson, 1824.
 * A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1830; American ed., Boston: Carter, Hendee and Co., 1833; 2nd ed., London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1835; 3rd ed., with Thomas Wharton Jones, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1840; 4th ed., with Thomas Wharton Jones, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1854; American ed., based on 4th British ed., edited by Addinell Hewson, Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1855.
 * The physiology of vision, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longsmans, 1841.