Helen Mackay

Helen Marion Macpherson Mackay (23 May 1891 – 15 July 1965) was a British paediatrician. She made important contributions to the understanding of childhood nutrition and preventive healthcare. Mackay was the first woman fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. After graduation from the London School of Medicine for Women (now part of the UCL Medical School), Mackay practiced at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children where she was the first female physician to work there, and also one of the first women to be appointed as a consultant there. Helen Mackay was the first person to investigate anaemia in infants and to attribute iron deficiency as an important factor of this. This led to changes in childhood nutrition favouring breastfeeding over formula feeding in the United Kingdom. Early life and education Born in Inverness, Scotland, on 23 May 1891 to Duncan Lachlan Macpherson Mackay and Marion Gordon Campbell (née Wimberley), Mackay spent some of her childhood in Burma, where she was homeschooled. Her father worked in Indian Civil Service there. Her early education was at the private school Cheltenham Ladies' College in England. She attended the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women (now part of the UCL Medical School), obtaining her MBBS degree in 1914 and then earning an MD in 1917. While there she edited the London School of Medicine for Women Magazine, a magazine for the women physicians there. Medical and research career Mackay specialised in paediatrics. She was the first female physician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and was later one of first women to be appointed as consultant there. In 1919, Mackay moved to Vienna where she studied rickets and other nutritional diseases at the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine as part of the Beit Research Fellowship. She remained in Vienna until 1922 when she continued her research in the United Kingdom. Mackay was a part of a British team led by Harriette Chick whose studies displayed the importance of cod liver oil and sunlight in preventing and potentially curing rickets.