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Shootings, killings, sudden attacks by Afghan tribesmen on the British army- not 2010 but Afghanistan in 1842.

In 1838 a British force was sent to Afghanistan to stop a Russian plot to annex that country. They were successful in deposing the ruler who favoured Russia but remained in the country as an occupying army. The Afghans bided their time and at the end of 1841 rose in revolt. By managing to separate the British from their supplies the native tribesmen caused starvation along with hypothermia and frostbite that the soldiers suffered in the winter. Indecisive leadership meant that the British army had no other option than to retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad 150 km away.

One of the medical officers was William Brydon (1811-1873) who had studied at the North London Hospital, which later became University College London. He then gained practical experience in Edinburgh before being appointed assistant surgeon in the Bengal Medical Service through the East India Company. His biography ‘The Last Man’ by John C Cunningham gives a blow by blow account of the retreat and massacre of the British army. The Afghan horsemen slashed and looted the soldiers whose passage was marked by a trail of the dead and dying. Unbelievably William Brydon was the first and seemed to be the only soldier to reach Jalalabad. Thus his name: ‘The Last Man’. However other survivors drifted in later and hostages were released in the following months.

A picture by Lady Elizabeth Butler is titled ‘The Remnants of an Army’ and depicts William Brydon arriving outside the walls of Jalalabad. Dr Brydon continued to serve in the Indian army after Kabul. In 1857 he was severely wounded in the siege of the Lucknow Residency and retired soon afterwards. In 1860 he settled near his wife’s home in Nigg across the Cromarty Firth in the Black Isle. There he provided free medical services to the local population until his death in 1873. He and his family are buried at Rosemarkie. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath for his outstanding service.

Because of the many traffic accidents, the Kabul Jalalabad highway is considered to be one of the most dangerous in the world.

Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic 1910-12

100 years ago Robert Falcon Scott arrived at the South Pole on 17th January 1912 to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had reached there before him. Scott and his four companions died on the way back to their camp.

What the ice takes, the ice keeps’ Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton’s Polar expedition on Endurance in 1914-17 was a heroic one with the survival of all his men. Several Aberdeen doctors have had connections with this frozen continent and its two famous explorers, Scott and Shackleton.

William Clark Souter (1880-1959)

Scott’s first expedition to Antarctica (1901-04) was on Discovery, now berthed in Dundee. Frozen in ice it was eventually freed with the help of ships Morning and Terra Nova. On board Terra Nova was a recent graduate from Aberdeen, William Clark Souter who, looking for adventure, had signed up as surgeon.

Souter was awarded a Polar Medal for his service and returned to Aberdeen to have a long and illustrious career as an ophthalmologist. In his later life while walking in Aberdeen he was caught in a blizzard and helped home by two girl guides unaware of their help to an Antarctic explorer.

Alexander Hepburne Macklin (1889-1967)

The story of Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914 when his ship Endurance was crushed by pack ice is well known. Less well known is Alexander Hepburne Macklin (MBChB 1912 Manchester) who was one of the medical officers with Sir Ernest Shackleton. With the Endurance lost, the men survived in three lifeboats drifting through ice floes until they reached Elephant Island. Macklin remained with the main party on the island for three months until Shackleton returned with help. He had to administer chloroform while McIlroy, the other medical officer amputated the frostbitten toes of one of their colleagues.

For his activities during the First World War, Macklin received the Polar Medal, OBE, Military Cross and Order of St Stanislaw, the last for helping evacuate wounded from the front during the North Russian Winter Campaign. He returned to South Georgia with Shackleton in 1921 and did the postmortem on his friend when Shackleton died of a heart attack in the bay at Grytviken, South Georgia.

Following one of his favourite phrases, ‘Always accept a chance or a challenge’, Macklin continued to lead a varied life becoming a chloroformist at Dundee Royal Infirmary until World War II intervened. He commanded a Field Ambulance in the 51st Highland Division before being sent to East Africa. Moving to Aberdeen, in 1947 he became physician in charge of the student health service in the University, retiring from this post in 1960. Such was his energy, he continued working in locum house officer posts until his death in 1967.

Institute of Environmental and Offshore Medicine

In the 1970s when the oil industry started working on rigs in the North Sea, medical care had to change and Professors George Smith and Nelson Norman from the Department of Surgery were approached by the oil companies. Professor Nelson Norman had spent time in the Antarctic during his National Service and was studying techniques of critical care while Professor George Smith had been involved in hyperbaric medicine and researching the effects of hypothermia.

As a spin off from research into caring for personnel working in remote places, Aberdeen liaised with the British Antarctic Survey and several doctors did PhDs researching physiological changes in the body due to cold. A laboratory was built on Morrone, the mountain at Braemar to continue research into cold conditions and in 1986 the British Antarctic Survey Medical Unit was established at Robert Gordon Institute of Technology Centre for Offshore Health in Aberdeen. Although BAS Medical Unit is based in Plymouth now, Aberdeen played a large part in its early days.

A historic Aberdeen-based medical society is to mark the memory of a leading north-east professor at a special lecture held in his honour.

Read more: Work of Jim Petrie Commemorated

A monument in Trinity Cemetery near Pittodrie commemorates those who donated their bodies for medical education. Dissection of a human body was the way anatomy was taught. The end of term service in Kings College Chapel with the families of the donors was a moving one. Computers and 3D models are now being used in medical education.