Wheeler, Benjamin
Physician
1910-1963

Benjamin Wheeler graduated from the University in 1935.  He 
studied tropical medicine in London, then served in the India 
Medical Service, 1937-1941.  While a medical officer with the 
British in Malaya, he became a POW and spent 1942-1945 in a 
Japanese camp in Formosa.  During his time there, he maintained 
detailed diaries and case records.  After the war he worked at 
the Baker Clinic in Edmonton; co-founded the Alberta Society of 
Internists; and did extensive research on extreme deficiency 
states, congestive heart failure, and peptic ulcers.  At his 
death in 1963, he was the head of the Department of Internal 
Medicine at the University of Alberta.

Multiple media, 1939-1945, 0.54 m    

Diaries, 1942-1945
Personal and medical.

Drawings, 1942-1945
Prison camp life; inmates; portrait of Ben Wheeler; greeting 
cards; diagram of cemetery.

Lists, reports, statistics, 1942-1945
Includes injuries; deaths; food; rainfall.

Medical casebooks, 1942-1945
Includes drug list.

Photographs, 1939-1945
Family; prison camp experiences (197 images).

Many of the notes are written on fragile scraps of paper.  
Includes material made for and used in the exhibit accompanying 
the premiere of the motion picture "A War Story" based on Dr. 
Wheeler’s POW diaries and produced by his daughter Anne.

Access: Restricted