Elizabeth Leishman was born on the 23 Apr 1819 and was baptised in Saint Gabriel's Street Presbyterian Church on the 25 May 1819. Her parents were Andrew Leishman and Elizabeth Clapperton. After her sister Mary died, Elizabeth married her sister's widower, James Powley Dawes.

Duncan Colin Leitch was born abt 1844, in Yarmouth, Elgin County, Ontario.

He was a family physician and surgeon in Port Stanley, Elgin County, Ontario (1874-1891). He started as a school teacher in Yarmouth. After graduating M.D. from the Long Island Medical College in New York in the early 1870s, he returned to Canada and graduated M.B. from Trinity College in Toronto in 1874. Dr. Leitch joined the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1874.

In 1869, he married Susan Long (1849–1902). He died on February 17, 1891, in Elgin County, Ontario.

Joseph W. Lella received his PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He served as Chair in the Department of Humanities and Social Studies in Medicine at McGill University, Associate Professor in Sociology, King's College, University of Western Ontario, Professor in the Department of the History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario, and Academic Dean at King's College. His research interests include Medical Sociology (health care professions and organizational change in health care institutions), History of Medicine (19th century Great Britain and North America), and the life and influence of Sir William Osler.