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	OSCAR RANSOM Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 814
	JOHN A. REED Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 900
	CLINTON M. RICE Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 604
	JAMES RILEY Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 527
	WALTER C. RILEY Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 527
	EMANUEL RINE Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 726
	HENRY RINE Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 727
	RUDOLPH RINE Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 728
	WILLIAM L. ROBINSON Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 684
	WILLIAM C. ROCKWELL Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 745
	JOHN W. RUSSELL.   No history of the medical profession in Knox county would be complete without a biographical notice of the physician whose name heads this article.  The following was written of this distinguished physician for the Journal of the American Medical Association in August, 1887, by Dr. F. C. Larimore, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, who is in a position to give an unbiased view concerning Dr. Russell.  His estimate of him is as follows:      John Wadhams Russell, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, was born in Canaan, Litchfield county, Connecticut, on Jan. 28, 1804.  His father, Hon. Stephen Russell, was repeatedly elected a member of the Connecticut Legislature, and his grandfather, Jonathan Russell, commanded a brig under General Lafayette’s letters of marque in 1778.  Doctor Russell’s mother was Sarah Wadhams, of Goshen, Connecticut.  His education until his thirteenth year was received at the common schools of Litchfield, whither his father removed in 1808.  Then he was sent to Morris Academy, and under Rev. Truman Marsh pursued his studies and was prepared for and admitted to Hamilton College in 1821.  He pursued his classical studies with the Rev. Mr. Langdon, of Bethlehem, Connecticut, one year, as his impaired health would permit, and in the fall of 1823 went South.  He took charge of an academy at Red Bank, Colleton district, South Carolina, six months and then commenced his professional studies with Doctor Sheridan, a scientific and noble-hearted Quaker.   Returning to Connecticut, he attended the medical lectures at Yale College one course, and then going to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, there attended the lectures in Berkshire Medical College.  Subsequently, going to Philadelphia, he was a private pupil of Dr. George McClellan, and was graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1827.  Returning to Litchfield, he there began the practice of his profession, and remained there one year, during which time he delivered a course of lectures on anatomy and physiology to a private class of young men.  In 1828 he removed to Ohio and began practice at Sandusky City, where he remained but a few months, when he moved to Amount Vernon, Knox county.  He was a delegate to and member of the Centennial International Medical Congress which met in Philadelphia in 1876.  At this meeting of the International Medical Congress Dr. S. D. Gross said: “It gives me much pleasure to introduce to my medical brethren my esteemed friend and classmate, Doctor Russell, whose extreme modesty alone prevented him from being the leading surgeon of the land.’’      In 1828 Doctor Russell married Eliza, daughter of the Hon. William Beebe, of Litchfield, Connecticut.  She died in 1871, having been the mother of five children.  In 1872 Doctor Russell married, in San Francisco, Ellen M. Brown, daughter of Joseph Brown, Esq.  She died Oct. 14, 1879.      Doctor Russell was a man of indefatigable industry.  During his life he probably performed more physical and mental labor than the majority of his contemporaries, in and out of the profession. His work did not begin with the rising or close with the setting sun, and the day usually allotted to rest found him actively engaged. In his early practice he visited his patients on horseback.  While on a professional trip near Gambler in 1836 his horse fell on the ice and injured his knee joint, which resulted in false anchylosis and compelled him to use a crutch afterwards. For a like disability many would have abandoned an active practice, but with him it had no effect, only to intensify his zeal and change the mode of his travel.  Mules were called into requisition, and with two of these animals and a carriage he scaled the hills of Knox and adjoining counties for half a century.  During the sixty years of his professional life, his instruction was sought by not less than three hundred young men preparing to enter the medical profession.  He was a most capable and thorough office preceptor.  He imparted instruction to his pupils by recitations, dissections, demonstrations and oral instructions, and by his own exemplary conduct taught them medical ethics.  He elicited the profound admiration and respect of his pupils, and inspired them with enthusiasm in their studies.  In his journeys to his patients he would take a student and his text-book, conduct the recitation en route, and when darkness or other cause intervened no time would be lost, for now came the memorable quiz over past work, and for which he was truly famous.  That his office was an uncomfortable place for a lazy student, and that the Doctor had no patience with a man who would not work his brain is shown by an extract from a letter to the late Dr. William Morrow Beach, of London, Ohio:  “For fifty-nine years it has been my happy lot to serve the afflicted conscientiously, faithfully, and I wish I might add judiciously. This I cannot always say.  I have prayed for wisdom, and would advise the same to my juniors.  The great sin in our profession is indolence.  A man is responsible not only to do as well as he knows, but to use his faculties to know what to do.’’      It was in general surgery that he took most interest and found most pleasure.  He regarded anatomical knowledge as the true basis of all success and skill in surgery.  Living in a country where it is necessary to be a general practitioner in medicine and surgery, he performed most of the so-called capital operations, such as lithotomy, herniotomy, and all the most important amputations, except that of the hip-joint, and many of the more delicate operations, as that for cataract, etc., and with almost uniform success.  He was careful to keep pace with the advances in medicine.  In all matters he faithfully followed his convictions of duty regardless of the sacrifice of self which such a course might require.  He was tendered the professorship of surgery in several medical colleges, but declined them all, preferring to remain in private practice.  He was an active Christian, ever ready to perform those duties which the love of Christ devolved upon him.  He had an hypertrophied prostate for eighteen years, the pain and other resulting inconveniences of which he bore with fortitude and without a murmur.  Retention of urine and uraemia caused his death on Mar. 22, 1887, at the advanced age of eighty-three years.  He died as many had predicted, “in the harness,” having prescribed for patients up to within forty-eight hours of his death. F. C. LARIMORE. Source: Past and Present of Knox County, Ohio - Vol. II - Publ. by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, Indiana - 1912 - Page 619