George Guthrie's clinical trial at the Napoleonic War Battle of Toulouse in 1814

Summary George James Guthrie (1785–1856) was a British military surgeon who came to prominence during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15). He wrote several books on military surgery and was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England three times. However, his most innovative and important achievement has largely gone unrecognised by modern historians. In 1814, at the battle of Toulouse in the Peninsular Campaign, he performed a landmark early trial of the treatment of musket wounds to the thigh. Here we not only discuss this clinical trial and place it in its social context, but also present the pathological skeletal specimens of two wounded British soldiers who took part in it.

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The Hunterian Oration ON BRITISH MILITARY SURGERY IN THE TIME OF HUNTER AND IN THE GREAT WAR: Delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on February 14th, the Anniversary of Hunter's Birth

BMJ ◽

10.1136/bmj.1.3034.205 ◽

1919 ◽

Vol 1 (3034) ◽

pp. 205-212 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

A. Bowlby

Keyword(s):

Royal College ◽

Great War ◽

Military Surgery ◽

British Military ◽

The Great War

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British Military Spectacle: From the Napoleonic Wars through the Crimea, by Scott Hughes MyerlyBritish Military Spectacle: From the Napoleonic Wars through the Crimea, by Scott Hughes Myerly. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996. 293 pp. $35.00 U.S.

Canadian Journal of History ◽

10.3138/cjh.32.2.277 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 277-278

Author(s):

Neville Thompson

Keyword(s):

Harvard University ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

British Military ◽

The Crimea

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Saving private W. H.: The surgical experiences of Dugald Blair Brown (1847–1896): Lieutenant-Colonel, FRCS, Edin., AMD

Journal of Medical Biography ◽

10.1177/0967772021995175 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 096777202199517

Author(s):

Charles DePaolo

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Early Development ◽

Royal College ◽

Gunshot Wounds ◽

Operative Intervention ◽

Boer War ◽

Conservative Method ◽

Military Surgeon ◽

Preserve Function ◽

Natural Healing

Dugald Blair Brown, a military surgeon and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, published twelve papers containing 77 case studies of gunshot wounds that he had treated in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and in the First Anglo-Boer War of 1880–1881. Brown devised a “conservative” method of surgery, the early development of which had been influenced by Thomas Longmore (1816–1895), Joseph Lister (1827–1912), F. J. von Esmarch (1823–1912), and Carl von Reyher (1846–1890). During these conflicts, Brown reacted to surgical practices unsuited to the battlefield and not in the interest of the wounded. One such practice was “expectant” surgery, the practitioners of which dangerously substituted natural healing for immediate wound resection. Brown also criticized “operative” surgeons who, when faced with gunshot wounds of the extremities, expeditiously amputated limbs. Viewing each case as diagnostically unique, Brown tried to salvage limbs, to preserve function, and to accelerate recovery. To achieve these objectives, he used debridement, antisepsis, drainage, nutrition, and limited post-operative intervention.

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Leonard Howard Lloyd Irby

Red Coats and Wild Birds ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649832.003.0005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 63-80

Author(s):

Kirsten A. Greer

Keyword(s):

British Empire ◽

Wild Birds ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

Strait Of Gibraltar ◽

Place Making ◽

Military Officer ◽

British Military ◽

Important Landmark ◽

The Mediterranean

Chapter 4 analyzes the ways in which ideas, practices, and performances of ornithology helped to sustain territorial maintenance and British imperial place-making in the Strait of Gibraltar by focusing on the work of Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Howard Lloyd Irby (Ninetieth and Seventy-Fourth Regiments). Located in the Mediterranean, the island-like territory of Gibraltar emerged as a strategic geopolitical position in the preservation of the British Empire and served as part of the “artery of empire” that linked Britain to India. It was also an important landmark in the British imagination as a result of the Great Siege (1783) and its resonance for Horatio Nelson in the Napoleonic Wars. This chapter demonstrates how narratives of wild birds and scientific performances surrounding the British military officer attempted to legitimize Gibraltar as an imperial, noble, and masculine pillar of empire, and to extend imperial interests into Morocco and Tangier.

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Montenegrin-British military cooperation against the French in the Bay of Kotor (1813-1814)

War in History ◽

10.1177/0968344520904065 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 096834452090406

Author(s):

Saša Knežević ◽

Boris Vukićević

Keyword(s):

Eastern Coast ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

Military Cooperation ◽

Historical Sources ◽

British Military ◽

The Subject

During the Napoleonic Wars on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, a British squadron established a close military cooperation with the Montenegrins. The aim of the British was to liberate Boka Kotorska (the Bay of Kotor/Bocca di Cattaro) from the French, and the goal of the Montenegrin Metropolitan Petar I was to unite Boka with Montenegro. The war events in Bay of Kotor are the subject of this article. The Memoirs and Letters of the British squadron’s Commander William Hoste were extensively used, as well as the diary of the French General Gauthier and historical sources from the Montenegrin archives.

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