Mission

He might have a sword, but probably not for use in battle. The surgeon would usually be below decks dressing the wounded during a battle, so he would have little use for a sword in that situation.

I just thought this was an interesting detail. “[bonnet] ...they took a Scooner, coming from North-Carolina, bound to Boston, they had out of her only two Dozen of Calf-Skins, to make Covers for Guns…” (Johnson, General History of the Pyrates 3rd Edition, p. 96)

Ron Atlantico Private Cask. Mmmmm. Pyrat is pretty good too. (Although my favorite pirate drink is stolen mead. )

No, but I thought it was interesting that a surgeon would own one. Although the author (whose details sometimes seem iffy to me) may not have been referring to a sword at all, but possibly to a capital knife which would be quite large - say about 12" long or so. Since the General History author appears to be relying mostly on other accounts, the person relating the information may not have known what to call the knife and referred to it as a sword. (I don't really know, I'm just positing a theory here. )

The wet cupping (cupping on the back after scarifying - or making a bunch of incisions) in Dangerous Liaisons looks about like what I'd expect. (And it also gives me a fine movie to refer to when explaining such.) OTOH, bleeding by drawing a 4 or 5 inch slice through the forearm has apparently been done for dramatic purposes. The surgeon would have to heal that huge gash after bleeding her, so he wouldn't make it that large. In fact, I have a pamphlet on how NOT to do something dumb like that by making a proper bleeding blade that will only cut the vein while not affecting the surrounding skin for the most part.

The heroic surgeon and his sword! This is from "The History of the pirates" (or Volume II of the General History) in the chapter on Captain Halsey: "The Dutchman (a Dutch ship of 60 guns) stayed, and fired a shot, which taking a swivel gun, carried it aft, narrowly missed the man at helm, and shattered the taffarel. The men perceiving they had caught a Tartar ['A person regarded as ferocious or violent' (thefreedictionary)], made the best of their way to shake her off, and some were running down between decks, whom the surgeon pricked up again with his sword, though he was no way consenting to their designed piracy." (p. 97)

It sounds like you're talking about hot shots. I read about this somewhere, although I don't think it would be done the way you mention. The point of hot shot was to get the cannon ball red-hot so that it would set fire to the ship when it hit. To do that, you'd have to have more than oil-soaked rags, you'd have to have the constant, intense heat created by a furnace. (Oil soaked rags would burn out long before heating small pieces of metal red-hot, let alone cannon balls. Plus there would be extraordinary danger in setting oil-soaked rags on fire on the wooden deck.) Stolen from the wiki on cannon projectiles: I doubt they would be used aboard a ship because of the problem of having the furnace 1) close enough to the cannon to load and fire the shot before it cooled and 2) protected enough to avoid setting the ship on fire. (Imagine a cannon ball smashing into your cannon-ball furnace and spewing hot coals all over your deck and into your sails. Bad idea.) I've read that even the cooking fires were often put out during rough weather, long travel and battle. So this idea was probably not used by pirates - at least not more than once or twice.

Trying to untangle the Misson narrative from Tew is pretty challenging. It seems to spread all throughout. Some of the events described that include Misson and Caraccioli appear to be based on real events. I think. So far this book is not nearly as rich in details as the first book.

Just before I saw it, it occurred to me that it could either be the source for BB's flag or the source for the person who tried to draw BB's flag. Although it predates him by a pretty significant span of years. (It also occurred to me that this was one of the years of the plague as well as the year of the great fire in London. FWIW.)

Instructions for Writing in GAoP style

The medicine glass is interesting, indeed, but later period. (Not quite as late as I'd have guessed, though.) They have neat leather fire buckets, although, again, later period.

So why is the guy in the lower right hand corner selling fruit? Is it for eating or throwing? (Just curious.)

I think we all agree these drawings aren't very good representations. On top of everything else, they look stilted. Look at the guy in the top pic holding the bottle. His pose looks completely unnatural to me. And the guy in that pic with the red coat and hideous red and white slops appears to be modeled on actor Carl Lumbly.

Speaking of the second volume - other than Captain Misson, which pirate accounts are fictional?

I have been trying to find the earliest edition of the Volume II of the General History. It was such a confounded mess that I thought I'd share this fascinating journey with you all so no one else has to try it (or their patience.) I started in WorldCat search for the title: "The History of the pirates, containing the lives of those noted pirate captains, Misson, Bowen, Kidd, Tew, Halsey, White, Condent, Bellamy ... and their several crews" or, in order not to limit the search in case all that garbage didn't get entered correctly in the library records, "The History of the pirates, containing" WorldCat gave me: 1) an 1814 edition, 2) an 1825 edition, 3) an 1827 edition, 4) an 1829 edition, 5) an 1834 edition, 6) an 1835 edition Since that all seemed 100 years past the expiration date, I tried a search for the title "Of Captain Mission". This gave me (surprise!) a 1728 edition! Of course, pirates is spelled with a 'y' in this edition. Curiously, searching for "The History of the Pyrates" does NOT produce this edition, but gives you several links to the Volume I or The General History! Someone needs to be shot, preferably through the head. If you want to see an actual copy of the 1728 edition, you will find it here, although it does not appear in a nice, downloadable PDF form, which I find irritating. You can pull up a text version there, but they appear to have updated various bits in that. Such being the case, I don't see why I shouldn't just go ahead and use the PDF version of the 1829 Edition which can be retrieved here. (A PDF of the 1834 edition is also available here.)

Looking at the larger photos, that is exactly the kind of pocket I had Michael put in for me.

I'll bet that's a secondhand drawing of a manatee. You want to see some weird creatures, do a search for Ambroise Paré in one of those image databases.

No garters are for making you spend money on something that either cuts off the circulation to your legs or don't work properly. Actually, my big problem with garters is that to work with some of my breeches, they'd have to be worn above my knee. As if the damned things don't already look silly enough when you put them on below your knees... Well, IMO. But then I don't like the breeches much to begin with. Although I like 'em loads better when they go down to my upper calf, which I'm told is a later period look.

Note that he appears to be riding another animal - possibly a bear? - that is about to be cudgeled by a clown for nosing about in the clown's donkey's basket. (Did you follow all that?) I suspect he's a Chelsea Pensioner. Actually, SB1700 pointed him out in another thread and I liked him so much that I sliced him out of that busy image and used him in the opening page of my web page on amputation (with due credit to Hogarth, natch.)

I actually asked Michael to put them at chest level where they are in modern coats, which he didn't seem to think would be accurate, although since they're hidden, he agreed to do that for me. Michael is cool like that. And I am a heathen like that. To add apparel crime upon apparel crime, I would actually like to sew the tops of my socks into the cuff of my knee pants (er, breeches) so that they will never fall down again. Except then I'd have to wear the same stinky socks if I wore those breeches two days in a row.

A wooden-legged sailor! Just in time for the second half of my article on period amputation which will include bits on prosthetic limbs. (I appreciate you folks keeping me abreast of these things. ) I think it's interesting that the red top of the tricorn has a sheen. You wouldn't expect that of a regular tri-corn, I think. But I may be reading too much into Hogarth's use of shading. (It's too bad Hogarth isn't alive today to draw images of re-enactors studying and interpreting his images.)

Ah, so inside pockets are there for criminals and surgeons.

Excellent! I would do a write up on sailors using turtles as food, although I don't know if I have enough information on it and it isn't directly related to medicine. Still, it would make a nice one or two page article for a month when I have a Surgeon's Journal to write and not just the monthly medical article. Thanks for the link.

Actually, gruel makes far more sense in the context of the original quote. Gruels, broths and caudles were very popular as post-operative food in surgical journals from this time. I also had a feeling it contained bread, although I don't know why. Probably because of the name.

I wear one, but my costume is based on a lower class gentleman's clothing, not a sailor's and I don't know enough to respond beyond that. I trust my tailor implicitly, however. (Except when I insist he do something for me that wouldn't be correct like adding inside pockets to a coat. Then any error is entirely my own.)