The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick

India General Service 1895-1902 (2), 2 clasps, Punjab Frontier 1897-98, Tirah 1897-98 (Surgn. Lieut. J. S. Stevenson, I.M.S.); another, 2 clasps, Tirah 1897-98, Punjab Frontier 1897-98 (Lieut. Maxwell Dick, I.M.S.), this last renamed in upright capitals, good very fine (2) £280-320

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick.

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John Stuart Stevenson was born on 24 August 1872, the son of Surgeon-General W. F. Stevenson, C.B., A.M.D. Training at St. Bartholomew’s, he gained the M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. London in 1895. He was appointed a Surgeon Lieutenant in the I.M.S. on 29 July 1896 and served on the N.W. Frontier, 1897-98. Promoted to Captain on 29 July 1899, he died at Lucknow on 20 July 1900.

Maxwell Dick was born on 14 March 1870. Attending University College London he gained the M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. London in 1894. He was appointed a Surgeon Lieutenant in the I.M.S. on 29 July 1896 and served on the N.W. Frontier, 1897-98, including the affair at Shinkamar in which he was slightly wounded. He was promoted to Captain on 29 July 1899 and Major on 29 January 1908. He retired on 13 February 1914 but rejoined for service in the Great War, being appointed Lieutenant-Colonel on 21 October 1916. After the war he was a Barrister-at-Law, Middle Temple, July 1919.

Both officers attended the Army School of Medicine at Netley prior to service in the I.M.S. Both were ‘guinea pigs’ in experimental work carried out by Professor A. E. Wright, M.D. Dublin, Professor of Pathology at the School, who was very keen to develop a vaccine against Typhoid. In a paper by Wright in The Lancet, dated 19 September 1896, p.807-809, entitled, ‘On the Association of Serious Hæmorrhages with Conditions of Defective Blood-Coagulability, both Stevenson and Dick, identified by their initials, feature as test subjects for the vaccine. Both survived without ill-effects.

Sold with some copied research.