Advance has been no more pronounced in any line of activity or business life than in the medical profession. The discoveries resulting from experience and scientific research have brought to the knowledge of men many facts which have proved of the utmost value in checking the ravages of disease and restoring health, and there is continually demanded of the followers of the medical profession more careful preparation and greater skill and ability. Possessing all the requisite qualifications of an able member of the medical faculty, Dr. Maclean has in his chosen calling won a success that is indicative of his skill and knowledge and well entitles him to the prominent position which he holds in the public confidence and regard.
He was born in Prince Edward Island, January 7, 1843. His father, Duncan Maclean, was a native of Scotland, and in the year 1806 crossed the Atlantic, taking up his abode in Prince Edward Island, where he followed the occupation of farming. His life record covered the long period of ninety-six years, and he passed away in 1888. In early manhood he had married Miss Flora MacPhee, a native of Scotland, who came to Prince Edward Island in her girlhood days and was there married. She too attained an advanced age, passing away in 1886, aged eighty-five years. In the family of this worthy couple were two sons and three daughters.
Dr. Maclean is indebted to the public schools of Charlottetown for the early educational privileges which he enjoyed. He afterward entered the normal school and was graduated at the age of seventeen years. Later he became connected with educational work and engaged in teaching for six years but determined to make the practice of medicine his life work and in 1866 went to Chicago, where he matriculated in Rush Medical College, pursuing his studies there until 1868, when he went to Michigan, where he engaged in the drug business. Subsequently he returned to Chicago in 1873 and was graduated on the completion of a course in Bennett Medical College with the class of 1874.
In the same year, Dr. Maclean located for practice in Douglas, Michigan, where he continued to devote his time and energies to the duties of his profession until 1879. Wishing, however, to make his home on the Pacific coast, he arrived in California on the 2d of October of that year and entered upon practice in San Francisco, where he has remained to the present time, covering a period of almost a quarter of a century. In 1879 he was elected president and dean of the California Medical College, and has since stood at the head of this institution. He is an educator of ability and has maintained a high standard in the school with which he is connected. Dr. Maclean is president of the San Francisco Society of Physicians and Surgeons, and was formerly president of the Eclectic Society of the State of California. He belongs to the National Eclectic Medical Association, of which he was at one time president. He has also been president of the state board of medical examiners.
In 1870 occurred the marriage of Dr. Maclean and Miss Jane Gray, a native of Michigan, and a daughter of Thomas and Lucy Anne Gray, early settlers of that state. Three children have been born to them, Sybil, Cecil, and Don. Dr. Maclean and his family are well known in San Francisco. He is a man of broad scholarly and scientific attainments, with an analytical mind that enables him to readily grasp the questions bearing upon his duties as an educator. He is, moreover, a gentleman of broad humanitarian principles and keen sympathy, and his native talents and well-developed powers have won for him a conspicuous position as a representative of the medical fraternity in his adopted state.
Source: Leigh H. Irvine; A History of the New California Its Resources and People, 2 Volumes; New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903.