When the 79th were camped at Varna on the eve of the Crimean War they were joined by an eminent surgeon from Edinburgh, Doctor Richard James Mackenzie. He was inspired to join the army when Britain was in a state of excitement at the prospect of a war with Russia. He obtained a letter of recommendation from the Earl of Aberdeen and, leaving behind a lucrative practice, sailed to Turkey and visited hospitals on the banks of the Danube. He presented his letter to Lord Raglan, and his offer to serve with the army was accepted. He was given the rank and pay of an army surgeon and, at his own request, attached to the 79th Cameron Highlanders.
The Camerons already had a surgeon, Dr Thomas Goldie Scot, who had been with the regiment since December 1841 and went on to serve with the regiment in the Crimea and in India during the Mutiny. He had been at college with Mackenzie so they knew each other.
After the Battle of the Alma Dr Mackenzie performed 27 ‘capital operations with his own hands, two of them being amputations at the hip joint.’ When he walked past the men of the regiment after attending to the wounded they shouted, “Three cheers for Dr Mackenzie!” He followed the army on foot, sharing the difficulties which included uncooked food as there was no fuel to make a fire in the treeless terrain. But on the march towards Sevastopol, the army suffered from Asiatic cholera and Dr Mackenzie was one of its victims. He died on the heights of the Belbec river at 8am on 25 September 1854. He was only 33 years old. He was buried on the same heights and a memorial erected to him, surrounded by a stone wall.
