Almon, William Johnston

  • DCB profile notes:
    • Physician and politician; b. 27 Jan. 1816 in Halifax, eldest son of William Bruce Almon and Laleah Peyton Johnston; grandson of William James Almon; m. 19 Nov. 1840 Elizabeth Lichtenstein Ritchie, daughter of Thomas Ritchie, in Annapolis Royal, N.S., and they had 13 children; d. 19 Feb. 1901 in Halifax.
    • William Johnston Almon was educated at King’s College in Windsor, N.S., and in 1834 was awarded a ba. He registered in the faculty of medicine at the University of Edinburgh for the 1834–35 term and continued there for two additional terms. Completing his medical studies at the University of Glasgow, he was awarded an md by that institution in 1838. By April 1839 Almon was back in Halifax, and that month he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the 5th Regiment of Halifax militia. After his father died in 1840, Almon took over his drug and medicine store and succeeded him as physician to the Poor’s Asylum. In the latter capacity he attended the sick immigrants at Waterloo Hospital during the 1840s.
    • On 5 Feb. 1848, before amputating the thumb of a woman in the Poor’s Asylum, Almon arranged that she be anaesthetized by having her inhale chloroform from a rag applied to her nose and mouth. Only three months previously chloroform had been first administered by James Young Simpson in Edinburgh, and Almon had probably read Simpson’s account of the procedure. On 11 March, Almon used chloroform again, during an operation to amputate a leg. Almon was among the first doctors in North America to use the anaesthetic.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1101
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/162658899/william_johnstone-almon