He joined the army medical staff in Portugal in 1798, was gazetted next year assistant-surgeon to the Royals, served in Holland, at Ferrol, in Egypt, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and through the Peninsular War, having been appointed to the staff in 1808 and made deputy inspector-general of hospitals in 1813.
[1][2] He retired in 1814 with that rank and the war medal with five clasps, and commenced practice as a physician in Argyll Street, London.
[1] He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1808 with a Doctor of Medicine,[3] and joined the College of Physicians of London in 1814, becoming a fellow in 1841.
[1] In 1816 he was appointed physician to the newly founded Royal Westminster Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye in Warwick Street, Golden Square, having George James Guthrie as his surgical colleague.
It was fought with pistols on Clapham Common at half-past three in the afternoon of 29 December 1827; when each had fired twice without effect, the seconds interposed, but another encounter was demanded by the principals, which was also harmless.