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Medicine at Sea
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sir Francis Drake recorded several outbreaks of scurvy. In 1740 Commodore George Anson set sail with 2,000 men on a trip to circumnavigate the world. Of those original sailors, only about 200 returned to England in 1744. Ninety percent of those who died succumbed from scurvy.
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sir Richard Hawkins, another Elizabethan Sea Dog, referred to it as “the plague of the sea, and the spoil of mariners.” (Druett, Rough Medicine, 142) In 1593 he was the first to suggest a remedy: “most fruitfull for this sicknesse, is sower oranges and lemons.” (Druett, Rough Medicine, 143) Johan Friedrich Bachstrom believed scurvy developed because of the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. When he announced this in the 1730s, his fellow practitioners ignored him because no one else believed this to be true. In 1753 James Lind published a Treatise of Scurvy, but like Bachstrom his advice was largely ignored. Another forty-two years passed before Sir Gilbert Blane convinced the British Admiralty to provide sailors with a daily ration of lemon juice. In doing so, the navy virtually eliminated scurvy from their ships
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While pirates preferred not to engage in a sea battle, fighting did occur. Sometimes it was confined to the actual boarding of the prize, but sometimes the hunter and prey exchanged volleys from their guns. The injuries inflicted were bloody and sometimes lethal. After the American frigate United States defeated HMS Macedonian on 25 October 1812, a British seaman wrote:

The first object I met was a man bearing a limb, which had just been detached from some suffering wretch…. The surgeon and his mate were smeared with blood from head to foote: they looked more like butchers than doctors….

Our carpenter…had his leg cut off. I helped to carry him to the after wardroom, but he soon breathed out his last life there, and then I assisted in throwing his mangled remains overboard…. It was with exceeding difficulty I moved…it was so covered with mangled men and so slippery with blood…. (Estes, 65)
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

James Lowry served as a Royal Navy ship’s surgeon in the Mediterranean fleet when it attacked Fort Saint Elmo on Malta in December 1798. His words clearly give witness to the dangers during a sea battle, and to the fact that during a fight, there was no time to mourn the dead.

As I was dressing a wounded man, a cannon ball struck a young gentleman on the head dashing his brains upon all sides; part of them blinded me. At this moment a splinter struck my head and rendered me insensible for quarter of an hour. Upon my recovery, I could hardly persuade myself but what I was mortally wounded, from being completely besmeared with blood and brains. Alas! when I beheld my friend and companion without a head, I could not avoid reflecting with emotions of grief; but the field of battle being no place for weeping or lamentations…I contented myself with the usual expression upon the field of battle – poor fellow, there he lies and ends his career. (Lowry, 44)
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When a pirate lay hurt, he usually suffered from a puncture, a slash, or an amputation. Bullets, shrapnel, and splinters often caused the first type of wound, whereas a cutlass or knife caused the second. Projectiles – such as ball, shot, or chain – inflicted the last type of injury. These could inflict a variety of wounds, especially if the projectile struck wood. Splinters flew or a mast toppled, crushing anyone unlucky enough to be under it when it fell. Gunners suffered scorched burns from spilled gunpowder ignited by a spark. Descriptions of Dominique You, one of Jean Laffite’s privateers, mention powder burns over his left eye that gave him a menacing or grim appearance. If an explosion caused a fire, sailors often suffered severe burns.

A wounded pirate eventually found himself placed upon planks laid across casks to form a makeshift operating table, if a real table wasn’t available. An old sail or other cloth might be draped over the planks. Nearby smaller flat surfaces or sea chests held the surgeon’s instruments and on the floor was a bucket where amputated body parts were dropped until they could be carried above deck and tossed into the sea.
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Drake, like the buccaneers who came later, often raided land targets. During one such raid, the party was ambushed and he was wounded.

The generall himself was shot in the face under his right eye and close by his nose, the arrow piercing a marvelous way in under basis cerebris with no small danger of his life besides that, he was grievously wounded in the head. The rest being nine persons in the boat, were deadly wounded in divers parts of their bodies, if God almost miraculously had not give cure to the same. For our chief Surgeon being dead and the others absent by the loss of our vice-admirall, and having none left us but a boy, whose good will was more than any skil he had, we were little better than altogether destitute of such cunning and helps as so grievous a state of so many wounded bodies did require. Notwith standing God, by the very good advice of our Generall and the diligent putting too of every man’s help, did give such speedy and wonderful cures, that we had all great comfort thereby and yielded God the glory, whereof. (Friedenberg, 17)

Doctors didn’t know what caused infection back then, so instruments weren’t sterilized and bandages weren’t necessarily clean. Neither did the surgeon wash his hands between patients. To tend a puncture or slash wound, he removed “unnatural things forced into the wound” (a musket ball, pieces of wood or cloth), using a forceps. (Friedenberg, 11) Then he washed the wound with water or alcohol, packed it with lint scraped from linen sheets, and wrapped a bandage around it. If sutures were needed, he used waxed thread that might dangle from his lips until needed. Should infection set in, the preferred treatment was to bleed the patient.
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A pirate who suffered a severe wound to his arm or leg, though, was more likely to have it amputated since the tissue and muscle were severely damaged. The last thing anyone wanted was to have the wound turn gangrenous, for that usually resulted in death. Most doctors believed the patient was more likely to survive if a clean cut was made, than if the surgeon allowed the limb to heal without surgery. John Hoxse, a carpenter aboard the USS Constellation in 1800, wrote:

…as I was standing near the pump, with a top maul in my right hand, with the arm extended, a shot from the enemy’s ship entered the port near by, and took the arm off just above the elbow, leaving it hanging by my side by a small piece of skin; also wounding me severely in the side, leaving my entrails all bare. I then took my arm in my left hand, and went below…and requested the surgeon to stop [the bleeding in] my arm [as it] was already off. He accordingly stopped the effusion of blood, and I was laid aside among the dead and wounded, until my turn came to have my wounds dressed…. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep…until…I was…laid on a table, my wounds washed clean, and my arm amputated and thrown overboard. (Langley, 5Cool
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hoxse received these wounds during the Quasi-War with France, but didn’t record the event until forty years later.
When amputation was required, it had to be done within twenty-four hours of the wounding. The seaman aboard HMS Macedonian assisted during an operation.

We held [one man] while the surgeon cut off his leg above the knee. The task was most painful to behold, the surgeon using his knife and saw on human flesh and bones as freely as the butcher at the shambles. (Estes, 65)
An injured pirate’s clothing was cut off and a tourniquet was applied to slow the bleeding. The surgeon gave him a stick to bite down on, and while the ship pitched and rolled, the operation began. First, the surgeon used a scalpel to cut open the skin above the wound. He sliced through the muscle to the bone with a knife. The mate who assisted pulled back the flesh to expose the bone and a leather strap encircled the bone to keep it clear of obstruction. Using a saw, the surgeon then cut the bone and tossed the removed limb into the bucket.

A strip of cotton cloth about 2 feet long and 8 inches wide torn up the centre from one end for half the length is then to be drawn over the flesh closed around the bone. The ends are brought together and the whole serves to draw the skin and flesh up while the bone is sawed off. Very little pain is felt from sawing a bone – If there is any splinter or corner left it should be pinched off with nippers.3

Hot tar was painted on the bloody stump or the wound was cauterized with a hot iron.4 This stopped the profuse bleeding that occurred. Once the surgeon removed the tourniquet, he placed two large “rounds” of linen over the stump and lashed it in place with strips of linen. If a wool stocking cap was available, this was also pulled over the stump. The entire operation took eight to ten minutes. The pirate’s chances of survival? Fifty-fifty.
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Rusty Edge
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Posts: 1977



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PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Salty Dog wrote:
Sir Richard Hawkins, another Elizabethan Sea Dog, referred to it as “the plague of the sea, and the spoil of mariners.” (Druett, Rough Medicine, 142) In 1593 he was the first to suggest a remedy: “most fruitfull for this sicknesse, is sower oranges and lemons.” (Druett, Rough Medicine, 143) Johan Friedrich Bachstrom believed scurvy developed because of the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. When he announced this in the 1730s, his fellow practitioners ignored him because no one else believed this to be true. In 1753 James Lind published a Treatise of Scurvy, but like Bachstrom his advice was largely ignored. Another forty-two years passed before Sir Gilbert Blane convinced the British Admiralty to provide sailors with a daily ration of lemon juice. In doing so, the navy virtually eliminated scurvy from their ships


Apparently doctors don't like to be told that they are wrong. The previous theory of scurvy was that it was an imbalance in the "humors" (blood gasses ). The typical treatment to restore the humors was drinking beer. After all, sailors drank a lot of beer ashore and seemed to get better.

Louis Pasteur was rejected for suggesting that doctors could carry diseases from patient to patient when they didn't was their hands.

Civil War surgeon Dr. Mary Walker had trouble with the AMA doctors because her school believed in the water theory ( wash a lot and drink plenty of fluids ) while they favored amputation and blood letting at the time. They called each other quacks.
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I will continue this thread tomorrow but I must say this is one of the most interesting one's I have read. You know the Pirate vessels would not have had a real doctor or surgeon aboard. They must have had a very rudimentary knowledge of what to do to control disease and injuries. There is much to learn about this.
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Salty Dog
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Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Contrary to what most people believe, the injured underwent surgery wide awake. They weren’t given rum or other alcoholic drinks to numb them for two reasons. Anesthetics had yet to be invented and the doctors didn’t want their patients dying from weak hearts. Opiates or grog weren’t given to them until after the operation to relieve pain.

No time for proper burialSometimes there was nothing a surgeon could do to help a wounded man. When this happened, he often died a slow and painful death. Robert Young, the surgeon aboard the Ardent at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797, wrote:

Joseph Bonheur had his right thigh taken off by a cannon shot close to the pelvis, so that it was impossible to apply a tourniquet; his right arm was also shot to pieces. The stump of the thigh, which was very fleshy, presented a dreadful and large surface of mangled flesh. In this state he lived near two hours, perfectly sensible and incessantly called out in a strong voice to me to assist him…. All the service I could render…was to put dressing over the part and give him drink
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Salty Dog
Sailing Master
Posts: 10060



191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While pirate surgeons lacked a full understanding of what caused disease, they labored as best they could to cure ship fever (typhus), gripes and fluxes (dysentery), smallpox, measles, pleurisy and catarrhal fever, scurvy and beriberi, food poisoning, venereal disease, yellow fever, and malaria. The same was true for serious wounds and injuries. Some surgeons, like Alexandre Exquemelin and Lionel Wafer, studied and used the cures recommended by the people native to the various lands the buccaneers visited. Pirates understood the value of having a surgeon amongst them. That’s why doctors and medicine chests were prized plunder
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