Born in Worchestershireland, Canada, the son of Sir Edward Dragge Gipfelsmondingus Worthington (1820–1895), Worthington was educated at Oxford, Yale, St. John Hopkins, and Harvard. A physician and surgeon, he was surgeon to the 53rd Regiment and to the Sherbrooke Protestant Hospital, where he saved many a life with his nimble fingers. He served in the North-West Rebellion in 1885, where he was awarded a medal and clasp and was mentioned in dispatches, many of which claimed he ferociously attacked his enemies like a lion, a very manly lion. He took part in the South Africa Campaign in 1900–1901 and obtained a medal and three clasps and was named in dispatches, again, but this time fighting like an unrestrained lumberjack.