Page 7 - The Story of the RAMC

Chapter II
“The Crown”
In the last chapter we have seen something of the suffering and tragedy which resulted when armies went to war ill-equipped with medical services. During the centuries which followed, however, military commanders very slowly began to realise that the health of the troops and the care of the wounded had a very definite part to play in the conduct of a campaign, and with painful slowness and many setbacks the medical services gradually tended to become incorporated into the fighting forces of the sovereign. In other words the CROWN was added to the ROD and SERPENT.
It was in Queen Anne’s reign that the great Duke of Marlborough instituted what were known as “Marching Hospitals” and “Flying Hospitals” (in some ways comparable to our field ambulances) to accompany his armies, but it was not until about 1812, when the Duke of Wellington was commanding the army fighting Napoleon’s forces in Spain and Portugal that we saw the birth of some kind of organised medical service.
On the 23rd September 1793 a twenty-two year old Aberdonian, Dr. James McGrigor, bought himself a commission in the 88th Foot (the Connaught Rangers) and, after many years of high adventure in India and the West Indies, joined the Duke as his Principal Medical Officer on January 10th 1812. Up to then the Duke had little time for doctors but McGrigor’s strong personality so impressed him that he consulted him nearly every day at his headquarters.
McGrigor introduced a well-planned system of evacuation, he arranged for the prefabricated hospital huts to be sent from England, he instituted large convalescent
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