Robert Tait McKenzie ( MacKenzie) (May 26, 1867 – April 28, 1938) was a Canadian physician, educator, sculptor, athlete, soldier and Scouter. Born in Ramsay Township, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada, he attended McGill University in Montreal as an undergraduate and medical student, and was an instructor in its medical school beginning in 1894. In 1904, he moved to the United States to teach at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the 1930s, he returned to the county of his birth, retiring to the Mill of Kintail in Almonte.
He pioneered physical fitness programs in Canada. During World War I, his methods and inventions for restoring and rehabilitating wounded soldiers laid a foundation for modern physiotherapy practices.
Biography
McKenzie was born on May 26, 1867, in the township of Ramsay (now part of the Town of Mississippi Mills), in Ontario's Lanark County. A childhood friend was James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, with whom he attended McGill University. As a child, McKenzie did not regard himself as an athlete, saying,
"Looking back with an eye of memory I see a rather delicate child, sensitive at being called pale-faced, a roamer of the woods and fields with a mind filled with romance that Sir Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper alone could instill, going unwillingly to school, distracted by thoughts of the Deerslayer..."
In preparation for McGill he attended Ottawa Collegiate Institute (currently known as Lisgar Collegiate Institute) in 1883 at nearby Ottawa, Ontario.
McGill University
This attitude changed after he enrolled at McGill University in 1885. A pre-med major, he developed a great appreciation for and attraction to athletics and physical training. McKenzie became involved in acrobatics and gymnastics; set a 5-foot, 9-inch high jump record; ran hurdles; boxed; played football; and was on the tug-of-war team. In 1889, he won the Wickstead gold medal, which made him an acknowledged gymnastic champion. McKenzie found his athletic abilities focused on sports that did not solely require strength or stamina, but rather skill, coordination, and practice. During his senior year at McGill, McKenzie was an intern at the University Hospital. He graduated from McGill University in 1892 Medicinæ Doctorem et Chirurgiæ Magistrum, and then got an internship at Montreal General Hospital.
After graduating, McKenzie gained experience as a physician and surgeon, developed his own medical practice and became an anatomy instructor at McGill. He became convinced of the need for preventive medicine. Training and conditioning of the body, he believed, would prevent disease, physical breakdown and accidents, so he developed a program of physical exercise.
In 1894, he became the personal family physician of the Governor General of Canada, the Marquis of Aberdeen. He spent 15 months in the Governor General's household, where he mingled with various political figures.
During the 1890s, McKenzie asked McGill to develop a department and school of physical education, but the university declined, citing lack of money. As a compromise, in 1898, McGill appointed him as Medical Director of Physical Training, the first such appointee at a Canadian university. He wanted to customize the athletic programs for three categories of student: athletic, sedentary, or bookworm, and the school allowed him to start physical examinations for incoming students.
Amid his duties at McGill and his medical practice in Montreal, McKenzie sought escape in art. He first turned to watercolour sketching, and always kept a small notebook in his pocket in which he would scribble whenever something caught his eye. His interest in sculpting was a result of his extensive knowledge of human anatomy, his desire to portraying athletics artistically, and the limitations of portraying musculature in two-dimensional art forms.
McKenzie's first untrained sculptural effort was a series of masks known as Violent Effort, Breathlessness, Fatigue and Exhaustion. To achieve these masks, he studied facial muscles under physical and emotional stress. His research led to an article, "The Facial Expression of Violent Effort, Breathlessness and Fatigue," published around 1900 in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology in London.