Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macpherson, Duncan
MACPHERSON, DUNCAN (d. 1867), army surgeon and writer, was appointed surgeon to the army in Madras in 1836. During 1840-2 he served with the 37th grenadier regiment in China, and published a narrative of the expedition under the title 'Two Years in China, with an Appendix of General Orders and Despatches;' the work was well received, and passed to a third edition in 1843. On his return from China he served chiefly with the irregular horse in the Hyderabad contingent, acquiring in this way a thorough insight into the manner of treatment needed by a Mahommedan soldiery. On the outbreak of the war with Russia, Macpherson was in 1855, on the strong recommendation of his former commander, Lord Gough, appointed head of the medical staff of the Turkish contingent, a force of twenty thousand of the sultan's subjects who received British pay and were placed under British officers, the latter being drawn for the most part from the Indian army. During his sojourn on the Bosphorus he prepared his 'Antiquities of Kertch and Researches in the Cimmerian Bosphorus,' London, 1857, a very handsome imperial 4to, dedicated to Lord Panmure, and containing a sketch of the history and archæology as well as of the physical and ethnological features of the country. Besides woodcuts it contains a number of highly finished and artistic coloured lithograph plates, chiefly of vessels in terra-cotta, glass, or bronze. Most of the pottery described and depicted was subsequently transmitted to the British Museum (cf. Athenæum, 1857, p. 561). Returning to India, Macpherson was at once promoted inspector-general of the medical service of Madras. This infraction of the hitherto sacred rule of seniority, together with the feverish activity of the new inspector in the performance of his duties and his large schemes of reorganisation, rendered him not a little 'repugnant to the older official class,' It was, however, generally admitted that he anticipated progress in several important departments of military sanitation. Macpherson died at Merkára, Coorg, being then honorary physician and honorary surgeon to her majesty, on 8 June 1867. At the time of his death he was about to be gazetted president of the Madras sanitary commission.
[Macpherson's Works in Brit. Mus. Library; Gent. Mag. 1867, ii. 397; Indian Army and Civil Service Lists; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Lancet, 13 July 1867, p. 56.]