A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
=Wanless, John=, M.D., Montreal.—This famed homœopathic physician is a
Scotchman by birth, having been born at Perth road, Dundee, near St.
Peter’s parish church, where the celebrated Rev. R. M. McCheyne was
pastor, on May 26th, 1813. He is the second son of the late James
Wanless, a man who was in his day very much respected by his fellow
townspeople, and who for many years carried on business as a
manufacturer of green cloth in Dundee. His mother, Agnes Sim, is still
alive (August, 1887) at the age of ninety-six years, in full possession
of her mental faculties, and can see to read without spectacles. Dr.
Wanless much resembles this wonderful woman in many respects. Dr.
Wanless’s father intended that his two sons should succeed him in his
own business, but after his death, which took place when the doctor was
only ten years old, the executors of the estate, when he had reached his
thirteenth year, apprenticed him to Dr. James Johnston, one of
themselves, a leading physician in Dundee. This gentleman having died
shortly afterwards, James Hay, merchant and ship-owner, another of the
executors, and one of the governors of the Dundee Royal Infirmary,
discovering the boy’s aptitude for medical study, was induced to secure
for him the position of dresser and clinical clerk in the above
hospital, which for three years he filled to the entire satisfaction of
the governors and medical men of the institution. While he was here he
was a great favourite with the celebrated lithotomist, Dr. John
Creighton, of Dundee, and this gentleman often asked young Wanless to
assist him in his private operations, as well as in the hospital, and on
the eve of his leaving to prosecute his studies in Edinburgh, he bore
high testimony to his ability and diligence as a student, and as to his
practical knowledge of his profession. It may be as well to mention here
that young Wanless, like all other boys on the Scotch sea-board, was
very fond of paddling in the water, and on several occasions narrowly
escaped drowning. When about ten years of age he and some other boys
were amusing themselves on some logs that had got adrift from the ship
_Horton_, of Dundee, just arrived from America, and had floated up the
river into a small bay, which at its mouth had a sort of pier with
arches on it. While astride a piece of this timber it capsized, and our
young hero was soon at the bottom of the river. On coming to the
surface, he found himself immediatetly below a raft, and considering
that his time had not yet come to be drowned, he struck out boldly from
under, and gasping for breath, he was hauled on the raft by his
terrified comrades. On getting ashore he dried his clothes and made for
home; but his father nevertheless discovered that he had had a ducking,
and gave him a sound thrashing and confined him in doors for some time
for his boyish escapade. The doctor now thinks that if his father—who
was a very loving man—had not been imbued with the idea that “he that
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