McPheeters, William M. (William Marcellus), 1815-1905

Dr. William Marcellus McPheeters graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned an M.D. (1840) at the University of Pennsylvania College of Medicine. He was resident physician and surgeon in the Philadelphia Hospital at Blockley (then Philadelphia Alms House Hospital) from 1840-1841. In St. Louis, he taught at two proprietary medical schools that later merged to form the Medical Department of Washington University. One was St. Louis Medical College where he was professor of clinical medicine and pathological anatomy, 1848-1851, and then professor of materia medica and therapeutics, 1851-1862. The other was Missouri Medical College where he was professor of materia medica and therapeutics (1866-1874).

McPheeters was born December 3, 1815, in Raleigh, N.C. In 1841, he arrived in St. Louis and began his long private practice. He was contributor and co-editor of the "St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal" for sixteen years (1845- ), and did important epidemiological work on cholera for "History of epidemic cholera in St. Louis in 1849" which appeared in that publication. He became physician and surgeon at the United States Marine Hospital in 1856. In 1862, he fled St. Louis and joined the Confederate Army as a surgeon. In 1865, his wife and children were banished from St. Louis and joined Dr. McPheeters in Arkansas. Following the war the McPheeters family returned to St. Louis, where Dr. McPheeters resumed private practice and teaching. In 1874 he became medical director of the St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Company President. He was a professional and civic leader serving as president of the St. Louis Society for the Prevention of Vice, the St. Louis Medical Society (1856), the Medical Association of the State of Missouri (1851), the Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of St. Louis and vice President of the American medical Association. He was a member of the St. Louis Board of Health (1876-1877). He died March 15, 1905.--Edited and expanded from the Missouri Historical Society Guide, p. 268-269; William M. McPheeters diary, 1840-1856, dedication statement 1840 May 25, and entries, 1845-1856; History of the St. Louis Medical College, St. Louis, Mo. T.G. Waterman, Publisher, 1898, p. 9; "I acted from principle," 2002, p. 1-10: Hyde's History of St. Louis, 1899, III: p. 1408-1410.