Throughout the preceding chapters, McGrigor has frequently been identified as an important figure in the militarization of army medicine and in the promotion of the military medical officer identity. His appointment as inspector of hospitals in the Peninsula, and his subsequent role at the head of the AMD made him arguably the most influential individual in military medicine during, and for the half century following, the Peninsular War. This chapter will focus on McGrigor in the Peninsula, and will reconsider the traditional account of his time there in the context of the conclusions about military medicine already advanced. It will go on to discuss how and why McGrigor cultivated the patronage of Wellington, and the importance of that process to the military medical officer identity and to the militarization of army medicine.

The official writings, publications, records and personal letters of such an important figure should be subject to rigorous examination, but McGrigor's autobiography (which lingers on his time in the Peninsula) has been adopted almost without question by his biographer, Blanco, and other historians of the Wars such as Cantlie. These narratives are traditionally dominated by accounts of his ‘warm relationship’ with Wellington, his administrative reforms in the general hospitals and in casualty evacuation, and his innovations in medical returns. McGrigor is also credited with significant achievements in the elevation of the status of medical officers. Together, these form an oft-repeated triumphal medical history of the final years of the Wars.