In 1806, William started to train to become a physician, it is believed at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, graduating from there in 1809. He then attended the University of St. Andrew's to get his doctorate, and achieved this in 1810, becoming William Henderson M.D.

What had driven William to a career in medicine was an ailment that had afflicted him greatly as a young child in Kinclaven, and in his early adult life. William suffered chronic indigestion, and he believed that a career in meicine could help him to try and find something that would help relieve his pain. He eventually created a mixture which he patented as Henderson's Stomachic Elixir, from which he subsequently went on to earn a vast fortune, it being so successfully taken up in Britain and the United States of America. The following advertisement in the London Times, of February 2nd 1832, describes the product:

STOMACH COMPLAINTS

Dr. Henderson's Stomachic Vegetable Elixir

 

Having suffered severely from stomach complaints, Dr. Henderson was led to turn his attention to the study of the subject. To the use of this medicine, when all others had failed, he and many others are indebted for complete exemption from pain, and restoration to health. To those whose bowels are habitually slow, and require the occasional use of laxatives, and for general family use, it has a decided advantage over all other medicines, inasmuch as it is safe, pleasant to the taste, and will appease the stomach when nothing else will rest upon it, and never loses its powers: the same quality always producing the same effect. It may also be mixed with food or drink of any kind, without oppressing the stomach, or losing the salutary effect on the bowels. It has been tried in every possible variety of stomach complaint, and found uniformly beneficial. Prepared by Dr. Henderson, Perth, whose name is subscribed in red ink on each outside label, and sold by Messrs. Butler, chemists, Cheapside, corner of St. Paul's, London: Prince's Street, Edinburgh: Sackville Street, Dublin: and their agents in the country: in half-pint bottles at 2s. 9d. and pints 4s. 6d.

 

How Henderson came to concoct this mixture is recalled in the introduction to the second edition of his book "Plain Rules for Improving the Health of the Delicate, Preserving the Health of the Strong and Prolonging the Life of All", published in 1856 (p.xvii - xx):

The sufferings which I endured from indigestion in early life, turned my attention to the study of medicine; and notwithstanding the advantages I thus possessed, so imperfectly were these complaints then understood, that it was only when they had reached the second stage, and began to react on the stomach, that an accidental discovery led me to a knowledge of their true origin.

 

Fifty years ago, when I was studying medicine, almost all the pains which were felt in the several parts of the human body were thought to have been occasioned by inflammation in the several tissues. Such having been the conclusion as to the cause, the remedy was obvious, and the lancet was freely used on all occasions when pain was the prevailing symptom. When free depletion failed to give relief, mercury wa shad recourse to, with the intention of changing the action in the affected part. Such were the remedies in almost universal use for combating the symptoms now known to proceed from indigestion. From the suffering I had all my life-time endured, and then laboured under, it may well be supposed that I submitted to the established treatment cheerfully, and passed through the ordeal heroically. It is true, I lost strength daily, but by and bye, my stomach gave me less uneasiness, and gradually, from loathing every kind of food, my appetite became voracious.

 

Now that my stomach gave me but little trouble, I thought all was right; but I did not then understand the cause, nor had I observed the curious fact that has been so often familiar to me, that when the irritation proceeding from indigestion passes from the stomach and its immediate appendages, and settles down on some special organ of the body, the annoyance in the stomach, for a time at least, passes from that viscous to the organ that has now become the seat of the disease. This constitutes what I term the second stage of indigestion.

 

My complaint was now looked upon by the best authorities as organic, and I was directed to have it treated accordingly. The excrutiating torture which I endured from the diseased action in the parts, and the treatment to which I was subjected, was such as makes me, even at this distance of time, tremble to think of.

 

After a few weeks, the irritability of stomach became again so great, that it would retain neither food nor medicine.

 

I now, almost in despair, began a course of experiments to endeavour to compound an aperient that would rest on the stomach, and, if possible, restore the natural action of the bowels. After innumerable failures, I at length succeeded in compounding that aperient, from the use of which, I, and many thousands of my suffering brethren, have derived so much benefit.

 

No one could have been more surprised than I was at the effect of this medicine: as the bowels resumed their natural functions, my stomach gradually became soothed, the irritation in the lower portion of the bowels slowly subsided, and I began to enjoy life again. The continued use of this medicine, combined with some gentle tonics, in three months restored me to comfortable health, which, as far as these complaints are concerned, I continue to enjoy.

 

It was by pondering over, and reasoning from these facts, that I first arrived at the full conviction, that all the endless ills which flow from indigestion have their origin in im,purity of the blood, - from the sluggish and vitiated manner in which the digestive organs supply the material for that pabulum of life. Once satisfied of this fact, it has been the business of my professional life to follow it up; and this has been the main cause of my success in the treatment of these complaints. This important fact is daily gaining ground, from the rapid progress which chemical science is making, and the scarcely less brilliant light the microscope has thrown on the physiology of the human body.

On August 31st 1812, William married a lady by the name of Margaret Morison, daughter of merchant James Morison and Janet Blair. The old parish register for Perth's Middle Church parish recorded the wedding:

August 1812

 

Perth the Twenty ninth day of August One thousand eight hundred and twelve years ________________ Contracted

 

Dr. William Henderson Ohysician in the Middle Church Parish of Perth and Miss Margaret Morrison in Saint Pauls Church Parish of Perth Daughter to the Deceased Mr James Morrison late Merchant in Perth__________ Elder John Duncan.

 

The Persons before named were regularly Proclaimed and Married the Thirty first day of August said year by the Reverend Mr William Aird Thomson Minister of the Middle Church Parish Perth.

 

Margaret was something of an artist, and it is evident from William's will that he had profound love for her, and a deep appreciation for her artistic abilities.

 

As one of the town's handful of physicians, William went on to have a quite extraordinary career in Perth. One of the earliest known interests he had was in the disease smallpox, and in 1819, he published an article called "Reported Cases of Small-pox, being the First Appearance of a Disease Epidemic after Discovery of a Vaccine". 

 

In 1820, he further gained notoriety as being the doctor who successfully delivered a baby by means of a casarean section. Although the procedure had been known to have been carried out elsewhere in Scotland prior to this, only a handful of children had been known to survive the procedure. The following account from the Perth Courier of October 5th 1820 describes what happened:

The Caesarean operation was performed here on Saturday last, by Dr Henderson, in presence of six of his professional brethren. The patient being much deformed, and in a reduced habit of body, survived the operation only about 24 hours. The child, a fine girl, is doing extremely well. We understand that this is about the 24th time this operation has been performed in Great Britain, and that only one or two have survived it. Of the 24 children, only 11 have been brought into the world alive. Much praise is due to the medical gentlemen who assisted in this distressing case, two of them having constantly attended by turns on the patient, during the whole time she was alive. 

And from the internet, a further description has also been found of the case, the woman in question being a 30 year old lady with serious disability:

Despite being severely debilitated and confined to bed for some years with increasing skeletal deformities, she became pregnant, and in due course laboured unsuccessfully for about 102 hours. An elective caesarean section was performed, but she died some hours later, though her daughter survived and was appropriately christened Caesar Anna. This represents one of the earliest cases in which the caesarean operation was performed where the full obstetric history was carefully recorded by the obstetrician involved, Dr. Henderson of Perth. The case was clearly considered important, and in 1836 engravings of this pelvis were used to illustrate Professor Hamilton's "Practical Observations of Various Subjects Related to Midwifery". Such cases are now of great rarity in the developed world.

William carefully recorded the progress of this particular case and in 1821 had the case published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, under the title of "A Case of Caesarean Section where the Child was Saved". (The article has still to be sourced.)

 

On June 25th 1825, William, in his capacity as one of the elders at the East Parish Church of Perth, recorded the contractual arrangements for the wedding of Ann Paton and Alexander MacKay. Ann was Calum's and Jamie's great great great great great great aunt, daughter of William Paton and Christian Hay, their great great great great great grandparents.

Perhaps the biggest crisis that William faced in his role as a physician in Perth was the cholera epidemic of 1832, which killed hundreds of the town's citizens:

Cholera.- In 1832, the Asiatic cholera visited Perth, as it did many other towns in Britain. As in the visitation of the plague, the most effectual means that could be devised were adopted by the continued authorities to avert or mitigate the malady. A meeting of the the influential classes of the community was called. The meeting divided the town and suburbs into sections. To each of these a certain number of persosn was appointed, with authority to remove nuisances, and cause the house which required it to be thoroughly cleansed and purified. A temporary hospital was fitted up to receive patients; and competent medical officers were appointed to attend and take charge of them. A soup-kitchen was established, from which the poor of the place were supplied daily with broth and bread. The consequence of these precautionary measures was most beneficial. To them may be justly ascribed, under Heaven, the comparatively small number of cases that occurred. The deaths were 147. It is proper to mention, that, through the liberality of certain noblemen and gentlemen in the county, and of the inhabitants of the parish, no legal assessment was resorted to. The sum collected and expended was L.2091, 4s. 5d. (p.37).

As a part of the Medical Board for Perth during the crisis, William was one of the few physicians who understood why the disease was communicating so easily through the populace, and was therefore able to put in place measures that helped to defeat its transmission, thereby ending the epidemic.

 

William continued to be as inventive with other cases as he did his approach to his indigestion and the caesarean operation. The following article, from the Lancet in 1841, gives a particluar example:

NEW AND SUCCESSFUL METHOD OF TREATING DISEASE OF THE PROSTATE GLAND.

 

By W. Henderson, M.D., Perth

 

On the 1st of June, 1840, a gentleman consulted me under the following circumastances. About four years ago, he first felt a more frequent desire than usual to void urine, accompanied with more or less pain, and followed with frequent slight mucus discahrge from the urethra. He was then in London, and the medical gentleman whom he consulted treated the complaint as gonorrhoeal. He shortly after that left London, but, impressed with the idea of the alleged nature of his disease, he continued to take all sorts of medicines, known and secret, without any abatement of his sufferings.

 

When I first saw him, he felt an almost constant desire to empty the bladder, often passing only a few drops of urine at a time, accompanied with much pain  and pressure; occasional severe lancinating pains at the neck of the bladder, which extended throughout the urethra, and were most distressing at the point of the penis; priapisms and emissions during sleep, followed with extreme heat and pain; constant mucus discharge from the urethra; bowels confined; much uneasiness in passing the faeces; a sensation as if some hard substance were pressing from within against the verge of the anus, which no effort to empty the bowel could remove. Sitting for any length of time on a hard seat causes a deep-seated, heavy pain at the neck of the bladder; heat and excoflation at the verge of the anus on taking even moderate exercise on foot, and he cannot ride on horseback at all from the pain it occasions.

 

On introducing a catheter, to ascertain whether stricture existed, the instrument passed freely until it reached the prostate gland, where there was obstruction and much pain in passing it into the bladder. I then examined the gland with the finger through the rectum; it was much enlarged, and painful on pressure.

 

The ordinary means, viz. aperients, iodine, leeches, and counter-irritants on the perineum, were persevered with for four weeks, with scarcely any alleviation of the pateient's sufferings, and no progress whetever made in reducing the size of the gland.