Allen B. Kanavel was born in Sedgwick, Kansas on September 2, 1874.

[2] He worked with the United States Army during the First World War, both in the Surgeon General's office in Washington, D.C. and in France in 1918 as assistant to the Chief Consultant in surgery of the American Expeditionary Force.

[3] Dr. Kanavel died on May 27, 1938 in a car accident in Kern County, California, eight miles north of Mojave.

[4] His adopted sons Richard and David were also in the car, but escaped relatively unharmed.

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