Frank
Wells, M.D.
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Dr. Frank Wells, who was
for nearly forty years medical director
of the John Hancock Life Insurance Company, died March 4, 1919, in the
seventy-seventh year of his age. He was born in Boston on October 11,
1842, the son of Charles Bartlett Wells and Maria Louisa (Binney) Wells.
He prepared for Harvard at the Boston
Latin School, and was graduated from Harvard
in 1864 and from Harvard Medical
School in 1868. In the following year he received a
medical degree from Vienna.
In September, 1862, while in his
junior year in college, he enlisted in the Forty-fifth Massachusetts
Regiment and served until September, 1863. On his graduation he served
on the staff of General Lockwood. After further study of medicine in
Dresden, Vienna, Paris, and London, Dr. Wells returned to this country,
practised in Andover, and moved to Cleveland, 0. While in Cleveland he
accepted a chair in the Cleveland Medical
School and was a visiting physician at the Cleveland City Hospital. He
was also health officer of the city.
Dr. Wells returned to Boston in 1878
to resume the practice of medicine, later practising in Brookline. In
1882 he was appointed medical director of
the John Hancock Life Insurance Company. From 1891 to 1894 he was
president of the National Association of Life Insurance
Medical Directors. For several years he
edited the registration reports of Massachusetts. For some time he
served as vice-president of the Massachusetts Infants' Asylum and as
vice- president of the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association.
He was on the executive committee of the Boston Provident Association
and chairman of the school committee of Brookline. He had been a Fellow
of the Massachusetts Medical Society
since 1878.
He was the author of a book, "Filth
in Relation to Disease," and he published a volume of lectures on
"Social Hygiene" delivered before the teachers of the Boston schools. He
was a member of the Somerset Club and the Harvard
Club, and for many years belonged to the Union Club. In 1870, in Paris,
he married Gertrude Huidekoper, daughter of Edgar Huidekoper of
Meadeville, Pa. Mrs. Wells and three children, George D. Wells and Edgar
H. Wells, of Boston, and Mrs. J. H. Stabler, of Washington, survive him.
(The
personal edited research notes of Michael Echols, the source of which
may or may not be completely documented)
