Journal of Medical Biography > Volume 17, Number 3 > Pp. 139-143

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Surgeons

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

Neeraj K Malhan , Tessa Greenslade  and Piers D Mitchell  

Correspondence: Dr Piers D Mitchell, Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, The Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK (email: p.mitchell{at}clara.co.uk)

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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