272 



An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental Derangement, &c. 

 London, 1/98. 



An Account of some Experiments made with the Vapour of Boiling Tar 

 in the Cure of Pulmonary Consumption. 1817- 



On the Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption, and the 

 Effects of Boiling Tar on that Disease. 1823. 



Commentaries on some Doctrines of a dangerous tendency in Medicine, 

 and on the general principles of Safe Practice. 1842. 



GEORGE JAMES GUTHRIE was born in London on the 1st of May, 

 1785, and died on the 71st anniversary of his birthday. He was 

 descended from an old and respectable Forfarshire family, one of 

 whom, his great-grandfather, married an Irish lady, and settled in 

 her country. His father, a manufacturer of plaister and other sur- 

 gical materials, raised himself from poverty to considerable wealth ; 

 but, late in life, was again impoverished, and left his son at an early 

 age to seek and work his own way in the world. He was educated 

 in boyhood by an emigrant French gentleman, M. Noel ; and, when 

 thirteen years old, he was apprenticed to the medical profession, at 

 the instance of Mr. Rush, one of the Army Medical Board. For a 

 time he received his chief instruction from Dr. Hooper, one of the 

 most active pathologists of the day. In June 1800 Mr. Rush 

 appointed him an hospital-assistant at York Hospital (a military 

 hospital which then stood on part of the site of Eaton Square) ; and 

 in the following winter he assisted Mr. Carpue in teaching anatomy. 

 In the beginning of 1801 he was to have been removed from his 

 appointment, with all the other hospital-assistants who had not been 

 examined at the College of Surgeons ; and it gave proof of the s*c- 

 cess with which he had already studied, and promise of the spirit 

 which marked his after-life, that he immediately offered himself for 

 the examination. He passed, and obtained his diploma at the 

 College in February 1801 ; and in the next month, though not yet 

 sixteen, was appointed assistant-surgeon to the 29th Regiment, with 

 which, from 1802 to 1807, he served in North America. 



In 1808, Mr. Guthrie having risen to the surgeoncy of his regi- 

 ment, accompanied it to Spain ; and from that time to the end of the 

 Peninsular war (with the exception of a period of severe illness in 

 1810), was engaged in the most active service. He had a chief share 

 in the charge of the wounded at the battles of Roli9a and Vimiera ; 



