=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 spareth the rod hateth the child,” he would have done better had he given him some dry clothes, or sent him for a time to a warm bed. In 1831 John Wanless left Dundee and went to Edinburgh, as a student in the Royal College of Surgeons, under the then celebrated professors McIntosh, Liston, Lizars, Ferguson, and others, fellows of the college, all of whom are now gone to their final rest. During the college session of 1831, his friend, Mr. Hay, offered him the position of surgeon on board the whaling ship _Thomas_, which office he cheerfully accepted, although he was then only seventeen years of age. This good ship sailed from Dundee in March, 1832, and returned with a full cargo in time to permit the young surgeon to attend the opening of the college session of 1832-3. Subsequently during college vacation he went three times to Davis Straits in the same ship, and thereby greatly invigorated his previously rather slender physical frame. While on one of his whaling voyages he one day was out in a boat shooting loons, which are very numerous in Davis Straits, and a good many can be killed by one discharge from a gun. In the act of gathering the killed he espied a wounded bird at a short distance, and in his endeavour to reach it he leaned too far over the gunwale, lost his balance, and went head first into the Arctic sea. His shipmates were alarmed, and waited in dread suspense for some time, but at length he came up, holding on to the loon by one of its legs.