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This surgeon's kit was presented in August 1855 by the Marquess of Londonderry, Colonel of the North Down Rifles, to John S. Armstrong, a surgeon in the same regiment. Implements in the kit include those used for amputation, the removal of bone and other debris from wounds and trepannation - the earliest surgical procedure known to man which dates back to 5000BC. The procedure involves drilling into the skull and removing a small round piece of bone to reduce pressure on the skull. In the 1800s many surgeons in the British army were Irish, and it is estimated that as much as forty per cent of the Duke of Wellington's army at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was of Irish origin.