Mission

Brown seems very piratey to me. I use it extensively on my pirate surgeon page as well. About some years ago (I lost track of how many), the forum used to be mostly brown with a hideous plank-like background that made it damned near impossible to read certain things. This is sort of like that without the hideous plank. Since no one seems to care, I call it good.

A hint for those trying to make your miniature avatar look like the original picture: Crop the original photo so that it is square. Otherwise it get distorted when it is shrunk.

Aha! I have figured out how to make you all see it! Let the kvetching commence!

Apparently I am the only one who can see it. Too bad for you all. It's bee-yoo-tiful.

Are you going William?

I was playing around with the skin editor...without permission or anything... and I accidentally changed the forum colors to the skin I created. I can't quite figure out how to change it back, but I sort of like the new one. (But then, I would.) Anyhow, I don't know if Stynky will keep it or not, but it was sort of fun to play with. (As you may have noticed, I am a fan of the old colors - the browns we had before we upgraded the first time. I did hate that dark colored woody background we used to have, but the browns are piratey IMO. Blue is Facebooky.)

That's probably as good as the mid-west. Although Largo is almost civilization compared to the lower Keys.

Ok, for those playing at home, you can 'fix' your posting avatar (the photo that appears on your posts) by changing it in your profile. To do that, just mouse over your old avatar and a 'Change' bar will appear. Click on that and just upload a new photo. If you want to continue to use your old avatar just upload it again and it should be fixed. Below is a detailed explanation of what I believe has happened, although you don't need to read it if all you want to do is fix your avatar. The system appears to have taken your old profile photo (the one that USED to appear when you looked at someone's profile) and used that as your avatar. Except now mine is completely gone, so I imagine yours is as well. If this is the case, all that will appear on your posts was the word 'Photo.' Your old avatar (which used to appear on your posts) now appears as the photo in your profile instead of the posting photo. I'm guessing the posting photo is now MIA. Although your avatar appears in your profile it ISN'T linked to your posts. If you want your avatar to appear on your posts, you have to change it. You can even change it to the same avatar as is in there now. Changing the photo seems to fix the link

I'd say somewhere in the middle of one of the coasts is your best bet. That's where most of the events seem to take place. As Silkie says, the more strictly historical stuff tends toward the E. Coast and moves more towards Hollywood style on the W. (There are actually a surprising number of pirate-oriented events in the mid-west, too. The bulk of it seems to be more 1812 and FI War stuff, though.) If I were in your position I'd either move to Marquette, Michigan or somewhere in the lower Keys (at least 10 or 15 miles north of Key West.) Of course, those are probably not the best place to find lots of re-enactments.

Israel Cross asked me to work up a page on the treatment of scurvy. You can see the results starting on this page. It is written from the point of view of a Golden Age of Piracy surgeon in keeping with my webpage's philosophy. (If you want the whole history of scurvy and how it was cured, I recommend Wikipedia. )

Yeah, I was talking with Michael and Kate Bagley over the weekend and they explained the re-usable notebook idea to me. Very clever. They also said you can buy repros of them somewhere...was it JAS Townsend? (I saved the photos to my website and added them to the above post for future reference - eBay only saves auctions for a month or two.)

Wait...Lob has no digits. How can he fire a gun?

You need to come out to a re-enactment and try it. Then you'll have direct experience.

Dude, library. Besides, you work for an historic site, surely they have the ability to get hold of books for research. Take the initiative! (It took me almost a year of trying different angles to finally get a copy of Woodall's book The surgions mate, but I did figure it out.)

The 2011 Pirate Surgeon's Journal is finished! Check it out for all your random lunatic maundering needs. (Also, if you spot any errors which I missed (and there are some, I am certain) feel free to let me know so I can fix them.)

Yes. He is a bit pessimistic (sometimes more than a bit), but he gets into details which I enjoyed. Plus the style in the published books is easy to read. His are probably the best sailor's journals I've read. I was writing a fictional piece here on the forum at the time and his book very much informed mine. I've also picked bits and pieces of his style and put them into the Surgeon's Journals on occasion.

Some officer's etuis: http://cgi.ebay.com/...ME:B:SS:US:1123 I wonder what all the stuff is? The spoon may be an ear scoop and it looks like there's a set of tweezers... This one says the tan folding things are 'a thin natural wafer 2-leaf note and measuring pad.' Really? http://cgi.ebay.com/...ME:B:SS:US:1123 Too bad they have reserves or I'd watch them.

Thought I'd raise this up as I was recently recommending Barlow. What does everyone think of Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana? I know it's about a 100 years past period, but is there enough worthwhile stuff in there to make it worth the read?

Ha ha ha! I'm with Daniel - the overbearing prose is a bit much to take on a full stomach. I honestly only got a few paragraphs in before I lost interest in the college report-like quality of the thing. (What the hell is "visual rhetoric?") For a down-to-earth image of the everyday sailor's life, I suggest reading an actual account to this sort of stuff and building a mental picture rather than looking for paintings. (I don't completely trust period artwork. Many artists 'improved' things in paintings until the mid 19th century when realism started taking hold as a style. Well, except for painters like Hogarth who made them look worse than they really were.) For books, one of my favorites is Edward Barlow's book, Barlow’s Journal of his Life at Sea in King’s Ships, East and West Indiamen & Other Merchantman, volumes 1 & 2. It's pretty expensive, so I recommend going the inter-library loan route for this one. That's how I got it to read the first time. (Then I fell in love with it and spent 2 years skulking bookfinder.com until a fairly reasonably priced copy appeared.)

Oh, gosh. It goes on for 30 pages in my edition and it didn't interest me enough to highlight anything other than that bit. I recently discovered this book on-line here, although it is a much later edition than the one I am reading. In that edition, the confluent small pox discussion starts on page 245 if you want to read through it. He doesn't usually list a prognosis per se, instead he lists the symptoms, things he tried to cure it, noting what worked and sometimes what didn't. He occasionally brings up a case study although not as often as other medical authors. Like most period authors he usually goes off on tangents about any unusual symptoms that occurred in conjunction with the disease he is discussing, what he tried to cure them, what worked, etc. I do remember him railing against the use of 'hot' treatments pretty strongly, singling out nurses and non-physicians for prescribing such. I don't recall anything about Laudanum addiction from the period books I've read. Other than Sydenham, most of the authors I've read refer to it in passing as a treatment, sometimes noting its effectiveness. Of course, my focus has been on surgeons who would not have gotten as deeply into medicines as a physician or apothecary would have.

I don't know if those are any good. You better test them right away.

Here's some interesting stuff from Sydenham on dosage. He's actually talking about treating the Confluent Small-Pox, although he says things in general on Laudanum dosage that would apply elsewhere. I'm going to insert some paragraph breaks to make it a bit more readable; this is actually one long dense paragraph. "Now to speak of the Sorts of Anodynes, tho' I have used Liquid Laudanum for many Years with good Success, when this Indication was to be answered, yet I think Diacodium [syrup of poppies - according to my pharmacopoeia, this contains about one grain of opium per ounce] is to be preferred before it: tho' both may be used for the same Purpose, yet I suppose the Laudanum heats a little more than the Syrup. [He's referring to the heating property of medicines as it relates to patient's humors. Medicines were thought to have heating/cooling/wet/dry properties that related to and interacted with the bodily humors and the type of disease.] As to the Dose, that is not only to be suited to the Age of the Patient, but to the Degree of the Symptoms; and that which perchance would be too much for a Person whose Spirits are well composed, would not be sufficient for another, who has his Spirits enraged: for Instance, we suppose in general that six Drams are sufficient for most; but for those that have the Small-Pox, when this kind of Remedy is indicated, we must scarce give less than an Ounce, if we will do any Thing to the Purpose; which Quantity indeed must be prescribed for one Dose through the whole of this Disease. I speak now of grown People; for if it be given to Children, the Dose must be lessened according to their Age. And truly Anodynes are not so much indicated in Children that have the Small-Pox, as in grown People, for they are more prone to sleep the whole Time of the Disease; yet if they are in much Danger, I should be afraid to abstain from Opiates. But as I was about to say, it is very hard to determine the Dose of the Anodyne in all the cases in which they are indicated; for whether it be in any inordinate Motion of the Spirits, or in violent Vomiting, or Fluxes of the Belly [diarrhea], or great Pains; in which three Disease Anodynes are chiefly indicated (as we said in another Place) they are to be given in such a Manner, that if the first Dose does not do the Business, another, and also another, is to be given at due Times, till at length the Medicines answer the Intention of the Physician; not so much regarding the Quantity taken, as the Effect it should produce in the Patient: And when this is done, and not before, we must desist from so frequent and great Use of the Anodyne; but such a Space must be interposed between the Doses, that we may __ be able to know whether the last performed the Business designed, before another be prescribed. But when we have once obtained our End, the Dose of the Anodyne is to be lessened in the Progress of the disease, as Things appear." (Sydenham, p. 286-7)

If the website I cited is correct (and I don't know that it is or isn't), I wonder where they came from? Were the colonists making them from the tobacco they grew? You would think there would be an industry would build up around it if there were. It might suggest a hand-rolled look. Although just because a law was made doesn't necessarily mean the practice was common. There may have been a situation like we sometimes have today where one event caught the public's attention and led to the passing of a law with the idea that it would prevent future possible occurrences, sate the public ire and perhaps even make the lawmaker look good in the process. ('Caylee's Law' comes to mind...) Maybe someone managed to smuggle some out from Cuba on their way to the colonies and set fire to the squib-making factory.

According to this page, it doesn't sound like cigars would have been preferred during our period, although they existed. "Cigars, more or less in the form that we know them today, were first made in Spain in the early 18th century, using Cuban tobacco. At that time, no cigars were exported from Cuba. By 1790, cigar manufacture had spread north of the Pyrenees, with small factories being set up in France and Germany. The Dutch, too, started making cigars using tobacco from their Far Eastern colonies. But cigar smoking only became a widespread custom in France and Britain after the Peninsular War (1808-14), when returning British and French veterans made fashionable the habit they had learned while serving in Spain. Production of "segars" began in Britain in 1820, and in 1821 an Act of Parliament was needed to set out regulations governing their production. Because of an import tax, foreign cigars in Britain were already regarded as a luxury item." "Early 18th century" is sort of vague, but even if it was really early, it still would have been at the end of the Golden Age of Pyracy. Since the British were at war (on and off) with the Spanish during the GAoP, I don't think they would have readily adopted a lot of Spanish customs. Although pirates were sea-faring, their behaviors were probably still primarily rooted in those of their home countries. They might have gotten cigars from Cuba, although, again, this was Spanish-held and probably not a welcome place for pirates. So, if all that info is correct, I don't think cigars would have been the norm among the people who were typically pirates (the French, British, Dutch, Germans, Scottish, Irish and Americans - among others - see this thread for more on pirate nationalities) until after 1790.

Sorry. (When something like that pops into my stream of consciousness, I have to post it. )