Sir John Andrew Macphail, (November 24, 1864 – September 23, 1938) was a Canadian physician, author, professor of medicine, and soldier. Macphail was a prolific writer, and an influential intellectual during the early twentieth century. Life and work Macphail was born in Orwell, Prince Edward Island, on the family's newly purchased 100-acre farm. His father was William Macphail, a schoolmaster; his mother was Catherine Moore Smith formerly of Newton, P.E.I. Macphail was educated at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, and then at McGill University in Montreal, where he received his medical degree in 1891. While studying at McGill, Macphail wrote a number of reviews and articles for the Montreal Gazette, the Chicago Times and other newspapers. Some of the money from this work was spent on a trip around the world. Mcphail resumed his studies in England, where he became, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and was licensed by the Royal College of Physicians. In 1892, Mcphail returned to Canada, and the next year he married Georgina Burland of Montreal. They had two children, Jeffrey and Dorothy. From 1893 until 1905 Macphail practised medicine and taught at the University of Bishop's College. At Bishop's, he was professor of the diseases of children. Beginning in 1895 he also served as a consulting pathologist at the city's Western and Verdun hospitals. In 1903 he became editor of the Montreal Medical Journal. Eight years later this publication merged with another medical periodical, and Mcphail became editor of the resulting Canadian Medical Association Journal. He was editor of the Journal until the outbreak of World War I. He was appointed McGill's first Professor of the History of Medicine in 1907, and held that position until 1937. Macphail enlisted in World War I at the age of 50, and served at the front with a field ambulance corps for 20 months. As a member of the Sixth Field Ambulance, he served in several battles, including Vimy Ridge. Writing Macphail wrote The Medical Services, Volume One of the Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War. His volume was published in 1925 and included criticism of the minister of militia and the surgeon general. It "caused a major controversy in political and military circles." He wrote an essay on Canadian poet John McCrae, "An essay in character," for the 1919 edition of McCrae's In Flanders Fields And Other Poems. Macphail