Item 0058 - Letter, 28 December 1899

John Clarence Webster was born 21 October 1863 in Shediac, New Brunswick where he did his primary studies. He graduated from Mount Allison College of Sackville, NB in 1882 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1883, he began his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh where he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Masters in Surgery in 1888. During the course of his medical training he went to Leipzig and Berlin. He worked as an assistant in the Department of Midwifery and Diseases of Women at the University of Edinburgh until his return to Canada in 1896. He settled in Montreal and was appointed Lecturer in Gynecology at McGill University and Assistant Gynecologist to the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1899, he accepted an offer to fill the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Rush Medical College, affiliated with the University of Chicago. He also pursued work in Hospital at the Presbyterian Hospital, the Central Free Dispensary, and at the St Anthony’s and St Joseph’s Hospitals of that city. He retired from active work in 1920. During his career he won several prizes, scholarships and honours. He also contributed as a collaborator to various medical journals and, while in Chicago, was one of the Editors-in-Chief of Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics. Besides medicine, Webster was deeply interested in History and in his later years was active in the preservation of historic sites in Canada and served for seven years as chairman of the National Historic Sites and Monuments of Canada board.