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Melville Douglas Mackenzie was born on 29 June 1889, son of Frederick Lumsden Mackenzie. He was educated at Epsom College and then at the University of London where he obtained a degree in Medicine in 1911. He obtained his Doctorate in 1920 and Diplomas in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Tropical Hygiene in the same year, and in 1921 an additional Diploma in Public Health. He married Caroline Faith Mackay in 1934.
During the First World War, he served as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps (1917-1919). He was the Senior Medical Officer to the Russian Famine Relief Administration (1921-1923). In 1926 he joined the Ministry of Health and in 1928 he was invited to join the Health Organisation of the League of Nations. From 1931-1932 he went as the Special Commissioner to the Council of the League of Nations, to pacify and disarm native tribes - the Kru (Kroo) peoples - and fix new boundaries in Liberia. He was also a member of the Advisory Mission to the Liberian General Health Survey. In 1936 he became the Acting Director of the League of Nations Epidemiological Bureau, Singapore and later became Chairman of the European Health Committee of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Organization (UNRRA). Later in 1946 he was United Kingdom Delegate, with Plenipotentiary Powers, to the World Health Conference in New York. He died on 1 December 1972.