| Administrative History | Sir James McGrigor (1771-1858) was appointed surgeon to the 88th or Connaught Rangers in September 1793 and after serving in Flanders and the West Indies, the regiment was stationed in Halifax, Yorkshire from October 1796-May 1797 (Case books 3 and 4). The 88th was then posted to St. Owen's Bay, Jersey (Case books 5-14) [McGrigor was stationed in Jersey from May 1797 to late 1798. There is some overlap between the dates in these case books and this is perhaps an indication that some of the records were kept by his assistants]. McGrigor was sent with the 88th Regiment to Bombay on the 25 December 1798, arriving in May 1799, where they were stationed until October 1800 on the island of Colabah, near Bombay (Case books 14-18) and Old Woman's Island (Case book 19).
McGrigor was part of the Indian force sent to Egypt in April 1801 to fight French troops occupying Cairo and Alexandria. After their surrender, he was sent to Alexandria as superintendent of the medical department of the Indian Army in September 1801 and had to contend with an outbreak of the plague among the troops (Case books 1, 20 and 21). In June the army left Egypt, returning to Bombay in August 1802. Case books 22 and 23 were kept while McGrigor was stationed in Bombay and case books 24 and 25 appear to record the cases he encountered on the return voyage to England from India on board the 'Cumbrian'. After a period of leave, McGrigor rejoined the 88th Regiment in November 1803, and case books 26, 27 and 28 cover the period when he was stationed at Hailsham and Pevensey in Sussex and his early career in the Horse Guards Blue. |
| Description | Collection of twenty-seven case books belonging to Sir James McGrigor while surgeon in the 88th Regiment. The daily progress and treatment of each patient admitted to the regimental hospital is recorded and weekly remarks are also added. These offer summaries of specific cases and sometimes include more general observations, as in the case of book 23, on the weather and health of the troops.
The case books are not always in McGrigor's handwriting. As he notes in his covering letter dated 4 August 1847 [see AMCS/8/1], the entries were sometimes written by his assistants, who he lists as: Mr. Thom, Mr. Ninian Bruce, Mr. Peter Nicol, Dr. J. Brown, and Dr. Laing (all from Aberdeen), Mr. Tonera (from Ireland) and Mr. Peach (from Somersetshire). Also, the volumes are not always in sequence (Case book 1 is dated January 1802 while Case book 3 covers the period June to December 1796) and the dates sometimes overlap as in volumes 24 and 25. Case book 2 is missing. |