Mission

It sort of depends on what you're looking for - like anything, the topic of piracy is pretty broad. Are you after info on history or how to go about re-enacting? If it's history, Cordingly's Under the Black Flag is a nice general book on the subject to start with. If it's re-enacting...well, there again it's a broad topic. Do you want to learn to make clothes or just find out what to wear? Are you interested in weapons? Probably your best bet is to find the forum here that matches your interest and start skimming the topics until you find one that matches your specific interest(s). Don't be afraid to dig past the first dozen topics...many of the regulars here have already discussed certain points to death (and back from it in many cases) and moved on to new topics. So that which you seek may be buried on the second or third page of forum history. Or you could just throw your question out there on the appropriate forum and see what response you get. For the most part, people don't roll their eyes at a question and sniff, even if it's already been discussed. (In fact, they often respond and diverge into interesting new sub-discussions that hadn't occurred the last time it was discussed.)

Since these two topics have started diverging so widely, I decided to go ahead and create a separate topic. Because the original discussion was intertwined with the discussion on behavior in a period pub, I copied the relevant quotes and stuck them at the top in Foxe's first post so that it makes linear sense. Sorry about the mess.

What on earth for? I think a lot of women look better with their hair down than up and forcing them all to keep it up just to make involvement in a particular profession clear to those who know what it means is sort of silly and oppressive. Why don't we just make them all wear scarlet P's instead? Just out of curiosity, what is your period source for that bit of info, anyway? When was it done? For how long did the practice last? (If such a thing was to be a dodge to keep the law from learning, it couldn't have lasted very long. Only justice is blind, not everyone on the peace-keeping force.)

You would think the chain would break easily.

I added some information on bullet extraction tools that I copied from Jacques Guillimeau's book The French Chirurgery to my web page for your edification. Use the hot-link up there to jump to it. I thought the chain bullet he talks about and draws was sort of interesting - I knew they had chain shot for cannon, but not chain bullets for hand weapons. (Of course, it may not have been active during the GAoP - the TFC was first published in England in 1597.) I wonder how well it worked? Ah, the stuff you learn about... I also added info about John Woodall's Trepanning Procedure to the PSJ webpage which I notice I did not post here when I put it up a few weeks ago. I guess I forgot to do that after putting it on my SJ Facebook Fan Page. Sorry about that.

Hmmm...TMI on the last. It's amazing that you were actually able to come up with 10 of them. Everyone will be relieved to learn that Lob will be going to PiP...he'll be traveling in the diplomatic bag...again.

Wow, I forgot about this topic. I even laughed at some of my own dumb jokes up there! I am thinking even now about walking down Duvall in my pirate togs, grinning like an idiot. I thought that Patick WAS the guy from California? No, I was referring to Oderlesseye there. (Now see if you can figure out the rest of the people mentioned in #6. Hint: read the PiP '09 Surgeon's Journal for clues...or just read it to get in that PiP mood...)

I honestly don't know. When I read it, I was focusing on things that affected health for my notes on my book on surgeons. It's been quite a few books ago so my recollections of non-surgeon relevant items aren't to be relied upon.

I don't recall it talking about drinking establishments (but, then again, I don't not recall it talking about them either.) However, I heartily second Hurricane's suggestion. He put me on to this book a year or two ago and it does a really fantastic job of highlighting and portraying (and, best of all, giving period sources for) some of the things you don't read about in most accounts. It's a really terrific resource for our hobby, even if it will probably not be one that you will want to emulate. (And that includes Hawkyns. )

Got the gibbet! It appears to be the same as the last one, it was double boxed, which is always nice and it was a little bit cheaper than the last one. $175 shipped. Anybody else want to make one? Hmmm? Here's a Bucky skeleton you can get on eBay...according to the title it's a PIRATE SPECIAL! Israel Cross has been asking me about how to go about making a gibbeted pirate via pm and it occurred to me that some of the comments I made to him are worth repeating about that plastic gibbet, despite my previous exuberance for the thing. So...

It doesn't have to be Port Royal (unless Port Royal was typical). It doesn't necessarily have to be English/British, either, I've got French colonials in my fictional crew, too. So this is for a fictional account? On the one hand, I would think - as Hawkins hints - that behavior in bars would vary as widely as the people who populated them. As a modern day example, you're going to get one feeling walking into the local downtown hangout for executives leaving work and very different one at the local motorcycle gang hole-in-the-wall. Ditto period. Sailor's bars have long held a reputation for being more rough and tumble than the ones not quite so near the city port. OTOH, if you want something that is "undeniably" historically provable (inasmuch as that is possible), I have lately learned that the litmus test for such is three independent sources saying or showing the same thing. So I guess you have to decide where you want to rest on that continuum. If you're closer to the first idea, I would just assume artistic license and write what you need to move your story forward. The points earned in the public eye for being 100% accurate (which is pretty much impossible) are minuscule anyhow.

Hogarth was a satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist; his pictures were exaggerated on purpose. Although the things they show us may have existed to some degree, it would not likely be as he has shown them. For this reason, I never look to Hogarth when I'm seeking factual period info. It's like using Ned Ward's The Wooden World Dissected (1706) to back you up because it ain't fact, it's hyperbole. (Well, in Hogarth's case pictorial hyperbole which is something I just made up.)

What?! It's already time to bring up the "It ain't real enough!" discussion again? It seems like just a few months since the last one... Meh. You still all that in bars today if you look. You see people carousing a la the paintings above in the Taverns at events, too. You definitely see lewd, lascivious and (mock) thieving behavior. (At least I have. I could link to photos of all of this in my Surgeon's Journals, but that would be a lot of work. But feel free to do the heavy lifting for yourself - focus on the PiP journals.) There are often prostiteers at pirate events, who are dressed far more lewdly than the folks in those paintings. It's all there if you look for it - in some ways we're not so different from that time period.

For fun medical recipes (most not quite as horrifying as that, but still bizarre), I recommend Stephen Bradvvell's Helps for suddain accidents endangering life. I've re-posted a couple of my favorites from that one on the forum. To get all this stuff, you really need access to the Early English Books On-line and English Short Title Catalogue Databases. I explain one way of getting to them here.

I actually like Watt. Among other things he wrote a nice thing on burns that I have in my notes. I do tend to prefer the period stuff to the modern for the most part. I often use the Bibs in modern articles and texts to find period resources I didn't know about. Ah, Paré and his "...boiling new whelpt puppies..." ! He even has some wackier things than that in the last chapter of his Apologie and Treatise if I remember right.

The author in JRSM seems to have gotten it all wrong. Yonge didn't invent it and he mostly advocated against it. "I acquaint you of this for its rarity, not that I ever but once practised it, and I think it not prudent, because there is no necessity to imitate it in such stumps: for the disquamation [desquamation - shedding of outer layer, presumably of bone], which is also achieved without any great trouble; whereas should we neglect it, and find when the stumps come to be almost cicatrized [healed by the formation of scar tissue] (as once I did in designing to imitate the said Artist, and which made me resolve for ever to decline it) that there was necessity of doing it, by reason of a Caries [decay, usually of bone] then contracted, or but then __ discovering it self, it's manifest when trouble it would beget, and how greatly impede the dessication [drying up of the wound]; there are those that think they ought to scale all bones, that have though but by a recent Wound been bare: and others I have met with who on the other hand too much slight the Caries of bones, pretending they moulder off with the matter; how equally unreasonable and vain both are, I need not discourse to so competent a Judg as your self. Wherefore passing these matters, I shall now entertain you with an account of the manner of this Operation, I would recommend to you, after I have told you, that it was from a very ingenious Brother of ours, Mr. C. Lowdham of Exceter, that I had the first hints thereof." [Yonge, Currus Triumphalis, é Terebinthô, 1679, p. 109-10) I doubt most audiences would be that interested in a description of such a thing, but FYI, "...with your Catling [Catlin], or some long incision-Knife, to rase (suppose it the Leg) a flap of the membraneous flesh, covering the muscles of the Calf, beginning below the place where you intend to make excision, and rasing it thitherward, of length enough to cover the stump; having so done, turn it back under the hand of him that gripes [grips]: and as soon as you have severed the member, bring this flap of Cutaneous flesh over the stump, and fasten it to the edges thereof, by four or five strong stitches..." (Yonge, p. 110) So it's just a long flap of skin designed to be folded over and sutured on the edges that are not already attached to the stump. Yonge's concern appears to be that once you do this, you can't access the bone and necrosis is stymied, which is something Paré's flap method allows for. I think the JRSM author is confused by the (indeed confusing) statement: "Wherefore passing these matters, I shall now entertain you with an account of the manner of this Operation, I would recommend to you, after I have told you, that it was from a very ingenious Brother of ours, Mr. C. Lowdham of Exceter, that I had the first hints thereof." By this, if I have the right of it, he means that Mr. Lowdham, a man he finds to be clever, came up with it. However, when you read, "...I think it not prudent, because there is no necessity to imitate it in such stumps..." and it seems clear to me that while he finds Mr. Lowdham's ideas clever, he doesn't really recommend this procedure. At least that's my take on it. I have been using Yonge's manuscript on Turpentine as my car reading - that is, a document that I keep in my car in case I get stuck somewhere without a book. I can't say that I recommend it as it is mostly a long discussion about the benefits of turpentine with pages and pages of offshoots into stuff that is not very revealing or interesting IMHO. I hadn't actually gotten to this part, but I read ahead for you. [Caveat: I did not read the whole thing, just to where I saw the answer to your question.] I would like to note that I am a trifle confused over how the circumferential flap method of amputation got attributed to Ambroise Paré (a French surgeon who wrote in the mid/late 16th c.). I believe I have seen glimmerings of it mentioned much, much earlier, although I don't recall where just now. Paré does give the first full account of it that I have seen, however. I do commend Paré to you if you're determined to read far and wide on the topic. You can pick up well-edited and annotated books for a reasonable price on Amazon that may inform your surgeon impression. Paré is considered one of the great surgeons in the pantheon...plus he writes on some wacky superstitious cures in his book that can make for amusing reading.

Moyle is probably the resource I'd be most likely to recommend to someone who wanted to read a single GAoP period sea-surgeon book. Yeah, yeah, Woodall wrote the first one and it was for the merchant ship surgeons (who were the most likely to be taken by pirates), but Moyle writes in a way that's easy to read and comprehend as well as being direct and to the point. Plus his book was published during period where Woodall's came out 30-50 years earlier. Woodall's book is also a challenge to read (well, until you get the hang of it...and even then...) and sometimes tends to wander a bit. Still, Woodall contains rich descriptions and lots of info on medicines. (Although, from my experience, the medicines don't generally excite the crowds nearly as much as descriptions of the operations and surgical tools.) [Edit: While I'm talking books, here is a post where I give my short list of books that I think would be most helpful to period surgeon impressions. It also contains links to most of the topics on sea surgery here on the Pub.]

Hey, Zan! Welcome to the pub. I suggest you create a signature image and link it to your blog. (She re-enacts at least twice a month during the livable northern months from what I can tell. You can read her blog here.)

This thread needs some fresh posts.

Thanks! See you both at PiP!

Here is the link for the Surgeon's Journal for the September "Talk Like a Pirate Day" event. Enjoy! Note to the five regular SJ fans: There will be two editions of the next Surgeon's Journal - the one for PiP '10. The first edition will be (hopefully - a modicum of sobriety and a good internet connection allowing) updated daily while the event is going on. The second (full edition) will probably follow a month or so later. (It's an experiment to keep all you people who don't go to PiP (shame on you) up to date with pictures.)(Maybe Lob will go with me since Michael won't be there.)(Maybe.)

Officious Mission Key West Site Reviews Hemingway's home: full of cats. E. Martello: full of old stuff. (W. Martello: full of flowers) People who tell you inanimate objects are/can be possessed: full of... Now BOs Fish Wagon is something that must be seen at least once a trip. (Ditto Cafe Sole and Blue Heaven.)

I am more of an observer than a participant in the Lob saga. Shay might be able to do something with him, though. You could put him in the diplomatic bag and send him up here though. (That will make sense when I publish the next journal...I should have it done by tomorrow.) sorry if I implied these folks were gonna be in attendance, it's just a cartoon ... sheeesh.. just call me Stynky. Oh! For the record, I really wasn't criticizing, I was just noting.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure Mark Gist and Lob won't be there. I don't know if Ivan Henry is attending either...he was leaning towards 'not' when I last talked with him.

You forgot Stynky Tudor - the man, the myth and the legend. (That's 2% man, 3% legend and 95% myth for those of you keeping score at home.) Oh! Do Shay! Do Shay!