Born at 45 Hope Park Crescent, Edinburgh on 14 July 1867, son of James McCann, mantle-maker of Cockburn Street, and Elspeth Bell, his wife. He was educated at George Watson's College and at Edinburgh University, qualifying in 1888 and acting for a time as demonstrator of anatomy. He later studied in Berlin and Dresden, and then settled in London. He was in turn resident medical officer at the Belgrave Hospital for Children and at Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital, house surgeon to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, senior house surgeon to the West London Hospital, and finally surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women in Marylebone Road from 1893 till his death. He was also consulting gynaecologist to the West End Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System and to a number of hospitals in and round London. He acquired a large consulting practice at 11 Upper Wimpole Street. He was at one time a popular lecturer at the Chenies Street Policlinic. He had been president of the Chelsea Clinical Society and of the West London Medicochirurgical Society. In later life he devoted his interest to the sociological aspects of his specialty. McCann cultivated the acquaintance of colleagues all over Europe. He was an honorary president of the section of obstetrics and gynaecology at the XV International Medical Congress at Lisbon in 1906, a vice-president of the Ligue internationale pour la Vie et la Famille, and a member of the Société internationale de Chirurgie. He was dignified, old-fashioned, and deliberate in speech and manner, wearing a frock-coat and tall hat long after others had given them up. In later years he was a victim of severe arthritis. He died on 28 March 1941, at Westway, Endsleigh Street, NW1. Publications:- *Cancer of the womb*. London, 1907. *Treatment of common female ailments*. Ibid. 1922.