X THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



FRANK FAIRCHILD WESBROOK 



The subject of this sketch was the son of H. S. Wesbrook, a 

 well-known citizen of Winnipeg, and of his wife, Helen Marr Fairchild. 

 He was born in 1868, and graduated from the University of Manitoba 

 in 1887. Three years afterwards he took the degree of M.D., CM. 

 Following a summer course at McGill University he continued his 

 studies at St. Bartholomew's and King's College Hospitals in London. 

 It was his intention to return to Winnipeg and settle in practice, but 

 in the summer of 1891, he crossed to Dublin to undertake the noted 

 maternity course at the Rotunda Hospital, and this changed the whole 

 direction of his life. There he came into contact with E. A. Hawkin, 

 a Fellow of St, John's College, Cambridge, the most brilliant British 

 bacteriologist of his day. Under his leading young Wesbrook had 

 opened up to him the fascinations of research and the possibility of 

 elucidating the problems of disease. As a result he went to Cambridge 

 and remained there for several years, at first working in the Patho- 

 logical Laboratory. It may be remarked that he was the first Can- 

 adian medical student to enter for graduate work in Cambridge, and 

 his welcome there was cordial, as well for his personality as for the 

 pioneer character of his studentship. His friendliness, his frankness, 

 his open appreciation of his surroundings, and his genial, exuberant 

 vitality, attracted every one. For his important research work in 

 the laboratory he was granted a British Medical Association Ex- 

 hibition, followed in 1894 by the John Lewis Walker Studentship in 

 Pathology of the University, a valuable studentship with more than a 

 thousand dollars a year for three years. With this assistance he spent 

 some months at the Institute of Hygiene and of Pathology in the Uni- 

 versity of Marburg, studying more particularly the epidemiology of 

 cholera. The chief published outcome of his work there was a study 

 upon destructive effects of direct sunlight upon growths of the cholera 

 and other micro-organisms. The reputation which he gained from this 

 sound work and training led to his being called in 1895 to the Chair 

 of Pathology and Bacteriology in the State University of Minnesota. 



With his accustomed energy he threw himself heartily into the 

 work of the Medical Institute, becoming Dean of the Faculty in 1906 

 and retaining the post until he left the University. He planned and 

 arranged the admirable laboratory and he widened the influence of 

 the University as a servant of the State. As a member of the State 

 Board of Health he was enabled to co-ordinate the efforts of the 

 Government with the scientific equipment of the , University, and 

 developed a plan of laboratory diagnosis and supervision of infectious 

 disease which has become the model for other States and indeed for 



