William Middleton Michel was born on January 22, 1822, in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the son of Dr. William and Eugenia (Fraser) Michel. His father was of French ancestry and was educated entirely in France; his mother was of a family prominent in the colonial history of South Carolina. He was known familiarly by his second name which until about Civil War time he spelled Myddleton.
For two years, from 1835 to 37, Michel studied at the Pension Labrousse in Paris. In 1842 he began to study medicine under eminent French instructors and for two years dissected for Jean Cruveilhier. After receiving a diploma in 1845 from the École de Médecine he returned to the United States and in 1846 was graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina.
In 1847, Michel opened the Summer Medical Institute of Charleston in which he lectured on anatomy, physiology, and obstetrics. The school attracted students from all over the South and continued in operation until 1860. In 1852, he had been offered a chair in Crosby Medical College of New York and was urged by his friend, Dr. Marion Sims, to accept the offer, but he refused it to remain in Charleston. In 1862, he was placed in charge of a Confederate hospital at Manchester, Va. , and later became one of the consulting surgeons of the staff of the Richmond Hospital. He was the personal physician of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Michel was a professor of physiology and histology in the Medical College of South Carolina from 1868 until his death in 1894 and from 1880 until his death he was a member of the Charleston board of health. For a time during the war (1863 - 64), he edited the Confederate Medical and Surgical Journal, in which he published a number of important case records.
William Middleton was prominent in the Medical Society of South Carolina, serving as president from 1880 to 1883. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a corresponding member of the Imperial Society of National History of Paris. After the war, he became an associate editor, with Dr. F. Peyre Porcher, of the Charleston Medical Journal and Review and was also an associate editor of the Boston Medical Journal. His contributions to these and other medical magazines were numerous and considered of great value in his time. His study of the embryological development of the opossum, published in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was the subject of much scientific discussion.
a member of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Imperial Society of National History of Paris
In April 1866, Michel was married to Cecilia S. Inglesby, who with four children survived him.
