Article: GUTHRIE WAS ONCE RESCUED FROM ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH AFTER BEING SURROUNDED BY ENEMY CAVALRY WHEN HE WAS RECOGNISED BY A FRENCH OFFICER HE HAD TREATED MEDICINE George Guthrie: Soldier and Pioneer Surgeon By Raymond Hurt ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE PRESS, pounds 24.95, 294 pp Wendy Moore on the army surgeon whose life-long fight was to raise medical standards on the battlefield

When British troops landed in Portugal in August 1808 to take on the might of Napoleon's army at the start of the Peninsular War, their commanding officer, the future Duke of Wellington, made no provision

for casualties. This was little deterrent to the

23-year-old army surgeon George Guthrie, who bundled his few medical supplies into a borrowed biscuit bag, bought a mule and, with the aid of two one-handed men whose hands he had previously amputated, set off on the 80-mile advance on Lisbon with gusto.

In an era with no shortage of heroes and tales of derring-do, Guthrie was a resourceful man of seemingly superhuman qualities whose real-life adventures rival any Boy's Own story. ...

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