Frank Wells, M.D. Click image to enlarge Return to lecture card display   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.