Medical treatment during the Second Boer War the Siege of Ladysmith described the wounding as follows: Of the 22,000 that were treated for wounds during the Second Boer War, the majority survived, largely due to the efficiency of the medical teams which cared for the affected. The Royal Army Medical Corps, which had formed after the redunduncies of the Crimean War, played a key role in the treatment of the wounded in the Boer War. The salaries of medical corps soldiers had gradually increased and training improved, improving the system and quality of the medical services. Surgery had made considerable advancement in the late nineteenth century, and
Second Boer War invasion of the Cape Colony and Colony of Natal between October 1899 and January 1900. With speed and surprise, the Boer drove quickly towards the British garrison at Ladysmith and the smaller ones at Mafeking and Kimberley. The quick Boer mobilisation resulted in early military successes against scattered British forces. Sir George Stuart White, commanding the British division at Ladysmith, had unwisely allowed Major-General Penn Symons to throw a brigade forward to the coal-mining town of Dundee (also reported as Glencoe), which was surrounded by hills. This became the site of the first engagement of the war, the Battle of