I appear to have fallen in another hole. The point I was trying to make is that, two hundred years later we will never know. Was the Swedish doctor an intrepid hero or a bumbling fool? Probably neither. But we will never know for certain.
And we have two versions of the event.

We will never know for certain what happened with Wrede but just because there is no evidence to back up Macdonald's version of events does not, for me, mean it should be ignored. As you pointed out, he wrote his souvenirs for his son. Well, if it was for his son, why lie? He got things wrong. He forgot things. But, I can see no reason not to accept this incident as fact. Why invent it?