Beschreibung:

A Naval Surgeon's C.B. group to Inspector General William MacLeod Royal Navy, recipient of the Gilbert Blane Gold Medal ORDER OF THE BATH, C.B. (Civil) breast badge in silver-gilt with ribbon buckle; BALTIC 1854, unnamed as issued; GILBERT BLANE GOLD MEDAL (William MacLeod M.D. H.M.S. Madagascar 1859), 53gms, neatly plugged in the rim at 3 o'clock and 9 o 'clock, fitted with ring suspension, the group mounted for display, together with a modern sepia painting of MacLeod administering to the sick, very fine and better (3) Footnote William MacLeod was educated at Edinburgh University, where he received the degree of M.D. in 1841 and in the same year his L.R.C.S. He joined the Royal Navy in 1842 as Assistant Surgeon and was appointed to H.M.S. Wolverine, a sloop on the East Indies station. In 1845 he was appointed to the flagship of Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies station, H.M.S. Agincourt. Whilst in the Agincourt he was landed in medical charge of the detachment of Royal Marines, took part in the capture of the forts on the River Borneo and the city of Brunei, carried out by the Commander-in-Chief in person, and was present in the boats of the Agincourt during the expedition under Captain Mundy up the rivers in pursuit of the Sultan of Borneo. In 1847 he was appointed to H.M.S. Prince Regent, on the Mediterranean station and, in August 1853, was promoted to Surgeon. After a short period on H.M.S. Racehorse, a sloop stationed at Devonport (Plymouth), he was appointed, in 1854, to H.M.S. Driver, in which he served in the Baltic during the Crimean War, being awarded the Baltic Medal 1854-55. He then served on H.M.S. Melville, a hospital ship on the East Indies and China station, following which he was appointed to H.M.S. Madagascar, a store ship at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1859 he was Surgeon of the Madagascar during a severe epidemic of yellow fever at Rio de Janeiro. For his journal and report of that year he was awarded the Sir Gilbert Blane Gold Medal. The following extract is taken from Medicine And The Navy 1200-1900 by Christopher Lloyd and Jack L.S. Coulter: ‘Thus the Surgeon of H.M.S. Madagascar at Rio in 1859 writes 'I have entered all cases under Remittent fever... As to whether Yellow Fever is a form of Remittent Fever, I do not pretend to say,as I have not seen sufficient of it to enable me to determine, but the evidence is good.' The journal is one of the very few to mention mosquitoes. When the Assistant Surgeon, a lanky youth straight from England, joined the ship he had nightmares that he would be attacked by the disease The Staff Surgeon, MacLeod, identified spots on his body as mosquito bites. Soon afterwards the youth was 'taken all as suddenly as if he had been shot' and died four days later. A survey of the ship found the bilge to be full of black stinking mud, which caused five negroes to faint when they began to remove it. No wonder MacLeod concludes 'I believe that the fever was generated in the ship', especially as other ships alongside did not suffer; but he could not make the deduction that mosquitoes were breeding in the well of the ship.... MacLeod was appointed to H.M.S. St. George, on coastguard service at Falmouth in 1863, promoted to Staff Surgeon in 1865 and to Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets in 1866, being appointed to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, and lent to the R.N.H. Yarmouth. In 1875 he was promoted to Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets. He continued at Yarmouth in this capacity until 1880 when he retired from the Navy, and in the same year was recognised by the award of the Companionship of the Order of the Bath (Civil Division), as recorded in the London Gazette of Tuesday, November 16 1880. Eight years later he received a Greenwich Hospital pension. He was the author of several papers on medical subjects, in addition to his 'Yellow Fever' journal, including: 'Remarks on Insanity' 1866, 'Observations with Clinical Thermo