At age nineteen he entered Queen's College, Birmingham, to study medicine and in his spare time read books about legal cases.
[1] He arrived in Adelaide in May 1858 and was soon an active member of the Total Abstinence Society.He had a very busy practice, first operating from his home on Grenfell Street, near the Sturt Hotel, then ten years later on North Terrace.
Adelaide experienced an outbreak of diphtheria around July to September 1859, and Whittell, who had had some experience of an epidemic in England shortly before he left, was kept busy.
He met Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the great scientists whose discoveries were attracting worldwide attention, and made a lasting impression on Whittell.
[1] Whittell succeeded Gosse as President of the Central Board of Health on 20 August 1883, and applied microscopy to the solution of many problems of public sanitation.
[3] On the (perhaps forced)[4] resignation of Thomas Ward (1815 – 28 December 1888) in October 1888, Whittell was appointed City Coroner on top of his duties at the Central Board of Health, and in addition was made Vaccination Officer and Inspector of Anatomy.