A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various

      Cooke, Thomas Vincent, Moncton, New Brunswick, General Storekeeper of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, was born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, August 6th, 1848. He is a son of Dr. William Edward Cooke and Euphemia Turnbull. Dr. Cooke was a son of Thomas Cooke, of Garryhill, county of Carlow, Ireland, and Mary Mallow. Miss Mallow was a daughter of John Mallow, mayor of Dublin, in the stirring days of ’98. Mr. Cooke, sen., came to Halifax when a boy, and studied medicine under the late Dr. Head of that city, and graduated at Jefferson College, Philadelphia. He married Miss Turnbull, a daughter of William Turnbull, ex-M.P. for the county of Richmond, Cape Breton, and shortly afterwards moved to Pictou and practised his profession in that town until his death in 1879. He was a man of the most kindly and genial disposition, and was widely known and universally beloved throughout the county of Pictou. His son, Thomas Vincent Cooke, the subject of this sketch, was educated at Pictou Academy and the Normal School, Truro, and studied medicine for a time under the late Dr. Samuel Muir, of Truro, but having a dislike for the medical profession, entered the service of the Nova Scotia Railway Company as clerk in the freight department at Richmond, Halifax, in January, 1865. On the opening of the line to Pictou in 1867, he was appointed agent at Pictou Landing. Was appointed agent at Truro in 1870, and reappointed at Pictou Landing in 1872. On the reorganization of the service in 1879, he was appointed assistant auditor of the Intercolonial Railway Company, and removed to Moncton, where he was appointed general storekeeper in October, 1880. Mr. Cooke has always taken a deep interest in Masonic matters. He joined the order in Truro in 1871, and is a past master of Cobuquid lodge, No. 37, Truro, and past high priest of Keith Chapter, Truro, and of St. John’s Chapter, Pictou, Royal Arch Masons. Holds past rank as past grand king of the Grand Chapter of Nova Scotia, and is representative of the Grand Chapter of Nevada in that body. Is eminent preceptor of Malta Preceptory of Knights Templar, Truro, under the Great Priory of Canada. He was married in 1867 to Annie Curry, daughter of Captain John Curry, of Pictou, N.S., and has one son and three daughters. He is a member of the Church of England.

Rottot, Jean Philippe, M.D., Montreal, was born at L’Assomption, county of L’Assomption, July 3rd, 1825. His grandfather, Pierre Rottot, who had been gazetted captain of the Canadian Voltigeurs in 1812, was killed at the battle of St. Régis, on the 20th October of the same year. After his death, his son, Pierre Rottot, the doctor’s father, was appointed lieutenant to the “Chasseurs Canadiens,” commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel de Courci, and was present at the different engagements which took place between the English and American troops during the war of 1812, among others at the expedition to the Salmon river, and at the battles of Plattsburg and Chrysler’s Farm. Dr. Rottot received his education at the College of Montreal. He studied medicine at the School of Medicine and Surgery of Montreal, and was admitted to practice on the 16th November, 1847. After practising a few years in the country, he took up his residence in Montreal. In 1856 he was elected, without opposition, a member of the City council of Montreal. At the expiration of his term of office he declined re-nomination, in order to devote himself wholly to his profession. About 1860 he was appointed physician to the Hôtel-Dieu, and professor of the School of Medicine and Surgery of Montreal, where he occupied successively the chairs of botany, toxicology, medical jurisprudence, and internal pathology. In 1872 he became editor-in-chief of L’Union Médicale du Canada, which was just being founded. He was president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal in 1877 and 1878. About the same time he was elected president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec. In 1878 he resigned his chair at the School of Medicine and Surgery, and was appointed professor of internal pathology and dean of the faculty of medicine of Laval University at Montreal. Dr. Rottot was one of the founders of the Notre Dame Hospital. During his medical career he has been the physician of the greater number of the charitable institutions of Montreal, and is at present physician to the reverend gentlemen of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, and the reverend ladies of the General Hospital. Dr. Rottot was twice married; the first time to S. O’Leary, daughter of Dr. O’Leary, and the second time to the widow of N. Migneault, in his lifetime registrar of Chambly county. Mrs. Migneault is a sister of P. B. Benoit, ex-member of the House of Commons. By his first wife he had three children, the eldest of whom belongs to the order of the Reverend Jesuit Fathers, and is professor of philosophy in St. Mary’s College, Montreal.

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. The mate afterwards remarked “that the doctor should always be taken with the shooting parties, for he could dive for the wounded fellows.” It may be here mentioned that the doctor was a