staff of Wellington's army in the Peninsula.
He arrived at Lisbon 10 Jan. 1812, and was
present with the army throughout the subsequent campaigns from Ciudad Rodrigo to
Toulouse, including the siege of Badajoz, the
terrible Burgos retreat, and the battles of
Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse. On his
representations, the services of the medical
officers in action at Badajoz were for the first
time publicly acknowledged in the despatches.
Napier adduces the following striking proof of
the success with which the medical concerns of
the army were carried out under McGrigor's
direction : 'During the ten months from the
siege of Burgos to the battle of Vittoria the
total number of sick and wounded which
passed through the hospitals was 95,348.
By the unremitting attention of Sir James
McGrigor and the medical staff under his
orders, the army took the field preparatory to
the battle with a sick list under five thousand. For twenty successive days it marched
towards the enemy, and, in less than one month
after it had defeated him, mustered, within
thirty men, as strong as before; and this, too,
without reinforcements from England, the
ranks having been recruited by convalescents '
(Peninsular War, revised ed. vol. iv.) McGrigor's administrative ability, and the courage
and self-reliance which enabled him to accept jyrave responsibility at critical moments,
speedily won the confidence of Wellington,
who repeatedly expressed approval of his
arrangements (cf. Gurwood, v. 582,701, vi.
95). At the end of the war Wellington
again declared his perfect satisfaction with
McGrigor and the department under his
direction — 'He is one of the most industrious,
able, and successful public servants I have
ever met with' (ib. vii. 648).
After the peace of 1814 McGrigor returned home, was knighted, and retired on an allowance of 3l. a day. The medical officers who had served under him presented him with a' service of plate valued at a thousand guineas. He applied himself anew to his favourite subjects, anatomy and chemistry ; but 13 June 1815 was appointed director-general of the army medical department, and held the post until 1851. The salary was 2,000l. a year, with the relative rank of major-general. McGrigor founded the Museum of Natural History and Pathological Anatomy, and the library at Fort Pitt, Chatham, since removed to Netley Hospital. He inaugurated a system of medical reports and returns from all military stations, which, twenty years later, formed the basis of the 'Statistical Returns of the Health of the Army,' now perpetuated in the annual blue-books of the army medical department. While thus endeavouring to further the ends of science through the medium of his department, he was not unmindful of the personal interests of the officers composing it. In 1816 he started the Army Medical Friendly Society, for the relief of widows of army medical officers, and in 1820 the Army Medical Benevolent Society, for assisting the orphans of medical officers, both of which have proved most successful. The thirty-five years that he was at the head of the department were a period of peace and rigid retrenchment ; but the issue of revised regulations for the medical service, some improvements in the position of medical officers, and greater attention to the selection of men for foreign service, and in preventing overwork in the case of young and immature soldiers, were among the useful measures carried into effect. He retired on a pension at the beginning of 1851. He died at his residence in London, 2 April 1858, aged 87. McGrigor was elected F.R.S. on 14 March 1816. He received the freedom of the cities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The university of Edinburgh made him an honorary LL.D. ; Marischal College and University, now part of the university of Aberdeen, chose him rector in 1826, 1827, and 1841. He was created a baronet of the United Kingdom in September 1830. He was a fellow of the Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh, honorary physician to the queen, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a member of the council of the university of London, and of many learned societies at home and abroad. He was made a K.C.B. 17 Aug. 1850. He had also the Turkish order of the Crescent, the commander's cross of the Portuguese Tower and Sword, and the war medal with five clasps.
McGrigor was author of a 'Memoir on the Health of the 88th and other Regiments, from June 1800 to May 1801,' presented to the Bombay Medical Society in 1801 ; 'Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt from India,' London, 1804; 'A Letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry,' London, 1805 — this was a reply to animadversions on the '5th Report of the Commissioners of Military Enquiry,' which had been published by Edward Nathaniel Bancroft, M.I), [q. v.]; a memoir on the fever that appearea in the British army after the return from Corunna, in 'Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,' vol. vi. 1810; a 'Memoir on the Health of the Army in the Peninsula,' in 'Transactions i of the Medico-Chirurgical Society,' London, vol. vi. ; also ' Report of Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding in the Army in the West Indies,' 1838, and a like report for the United
