George Guthrie (1785–1856): surgeon to the Duke of Wellington, and a pioneer thoracic surgeon

Abstract

George Guthrie had a distinguished career as a soldier, surgeon and medical reformer. He revolutionized military surgery following his active service during the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. His book Commentaries on the Surgery of War was based on this experience and was updated continuously; it remained the standard military text for half a century. During this campaign, he also struggled to improve the poor administration of the Army Medical Service. He had little respect for established dogma and was a man of great humanity and integrity who based his opinion on personal statistical observation together with his own anatomical and postmortem studies. His influence on surgical thinking was enormous and he was three times the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.