Ship surgeons

[Calico Jack]

Alas,

Most of my Ship's doctorin' [well, no degree or high-and-fancy hands-off stuff for me, so surgeon and sawbones it is, lower pay despite] is tailored to the 1812, rather than the golden age of piracy. The Bloody Apron is an interpretive heritage program at the Maritime Museum where I am lucky enough to sometime find employment, and I've the honour of aiming to do said program justice.

Splinters and mercury, splinters and mercury.

For the piratically-minded, there was a decent article in a past No Quarter Given [likely already mentioned by one of these scurrulous dogs].

Always willing to compare notes [ CalicoJack@pyracy.com ], and best of luck to you in said endeavours.

[capnwilliam]

That was a great reenactment idea, Dorian! :)

Calico Jack, the 1815 period is mine also - well, I'm just getting started, but I'm doing the Battle of New Orleans; am also interested in Nelson's period (the Battle of Trafalgar's 200th anniversary is coming up in October 2005).

Capt. William

[Calico Jack]

performed field side surgery on him... got out his probes, wiped away some blood, "removed" the musketball, and then cauterized the wound, he had a hot iron from a fire, and a small wet sponge in his hand, made a nice sizzling sound....

Of course, aboard ship your most likely work for the surgeon after an engagement is either Splinters [yes, splinters, but often a couple of feet long and jagged], or else crushing damage from falls or tumbled gear. As such, with few 'clean' wounds, amputation was generally the rule. And infection? That's how you knew the cure was working - in any wound, what we would call infection was generally seen as an important part of the healing process...

... and of course 'Wind of the Ball.' Few cannon balls actually ever _hit_ anyone, but if one passed within a couple of feet of you, you would likely die of wind of the ball [internal hemorraging], unless it was closest to your head...

... and lets not forget the cure-all properties [or near abouts] of Mercury. That surgeon's chest mentioned above, often near forty of those two hundred odd medications were variations of Mercury, recommended for most ailments.

You could tell the mercury was starting to have the desired effect when the patient began to frequently and copiously _drool_...

Ah, medication in 1812.

And to think at the Shannon and the Chesapeake, the surgeon in the _winning_ vessel had roughly 8 casualties per minute dragged down to his tiny arena below decks.

No wonder doctors looked down on the smelly, bloody, dirty surgeon.

[Sjöröveren]

... and lets not forget the cure-all properties [or near abouts] of Mercury.  That surgeon's chest mentioned above, often near forty of those two hundred odd medications were variations of Mercury, recommended for most ailments.

  You could tell the mercury was starting to have the desired effect when the patient began to frequently and copiously _drool_...

All kinds of poisons used in physick, because they reduced symptoms or produced "results" i.e. vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, etc. Lead and mercury were probably the most common. Calomel was used as an analgesic well into the 20th century. It's on oxide of mercury, now used mostly as flux when soldering electronic components.

One of the more common uses for mercury was for treatment of syphillis. It was injected directly into the business end of the male member, (and presumedly the corresponding female portal) with at least one daily dose over the course of a week. This gave rise to the old expression "One night on Venus, one week on Mercury."

[Capt Grey]

You maties be a wealth o'information.

Thank'ee fer you offer, Red Maria; I'll be sendin' ye an e-mail fer a copy o' that document. And here I thought a woman wouldn't be accepted as a doctor in that day and age. (But we all know there were medicine women fer many hundreds of years in tribal cultures.)

WARNING: If ye be squeemish, don't be readin' the next paragraph!

Talkin' about leeches reminded me o'an article I read where they were trying leeches as a means to administer medicines. Seems leeches create a secretion what keeps the wound open sos they can keep suckin'. By injectin' the leeches with certain chemicals, the secretion can be chemically changed. Fascinatin'!

[Sjöröveren]

And here I thought a woman wouldn't be accepted as a doctor in that day and age. (But we all know there were medicine women fer many hundreds of years in tribal cultures.)

About the only folks who didn't accept women as healers were the doctors, i.e. the medical establishment. Until the mid 19th century, maybe 5% or less of folks in the West (Europe & No. America) ever saw a doctor even once in their lives. The vast majority of people used what we today call "folk medicine." Most practictioners were women: mothers, grandmothers, 'witchy women', etc. Midwives, at least the professional ones, were often former prostitutes who had become, hmmmm... unmarketable. 17th-18th century England, there were Bonesetters, lower class women who knew how to set broken bones. British surgeons had forgotten how, and would often amputate a broken arm.

I've portrayed a doctor/surgeon at reenactment events for about 10 years, and I like to tell folks that if they found themselves sick in Colonial America, if they had any hope of survival, they should run away from the physicians and find themselves a grandmother, preferably Native American. They actually knew something.

[Capt Grey]

Amazing. Of course there were lots of mid-wives for birthin' babies, I know. But I didn't realize that folk medicine was still so prevelent.

Thanks for the lesson, matey. I be learnin' new stuff everyday on this board.

[Zorg]

Ah, Mercury

Ah, the penis syringe fer those of ye not choosey enough during that nigh o tipplin in Port Royal

Ah, no problem atall except fer the screaming parts.....

[hitman]

When I was in high school we read an account of a doctor captured by indians in literature class for our non ficition portion of the class. Supposedly this doc performed an apindectamy on the tribal chief. His assesment of the medicinal skill's of the native doc's wasn't too high but then he wouldn't even have understood infection. I have always doubted his account one of those rarely true I was the only survivor who so impressed the savages kinda things.

[capnwilliam]

Very interesting ideas from Red Maria, about Thomas Dover, the doctor-pirate; and about the concept of a British Navy-trained barber-surgeon who becomes a pirate.

Did the US Navy have any equivalent "Army - Navy certification program" at that time, do you know?

Capt. William

[Red Maria]

I looked in "Medicine Under Sail" byZachary B. Friedenberg and "History of Military Medicine" by Lt. Col. Fielding H. Garrison and found no refernce for certification of surgeons in th U.S. Navy. Only British cerification by the College of Barber Surgeons. And that was often circumvented by necessity.

Some of the stuff in the Dover article is just plain funny! He was a very argumentive sort of person.

[Red Maria]

You maties be a wealth o'information.

Thank'ee fer you offer, Red Maria; I'll be sendin' ye an e-mail fer a copy o' that document. And here I thought a woman wouldn't be accepted as a doctor in that day and age. (But we all know there were medicine women fer many hundreds of years in tribal cultures.)

WARNING: If ye be squeemish, don't be readin' the next paragraph!

Talkin' about leeches reminded me o'an article I read where they were trying leeches as a means to administer medicines. Seems leeches create a secretion what keeps the wound open sos they can keep suckin'. By injectin' the leeches with certain chemicals, the secretion can be chemically changed. Fascinatin'!

Well women didn't have doctorial degrees but they did practice medicine. There used to be a distintion between a doctor and a physician. A doctor went to university and got a degree after studying many years and sometimes studying aboard. A Physician usually apprenticed to someone and studied medicine that way.

Starting in the 16th c. sometimes an individual would take a short course at some place like Caius College at Cambridge and get a licence in medcine or surgery but not a degree. Hence not a doctor but a physik or physician.

Women often studied surgey and medicine from a father or husband or other relative usaually male. There were alot both male and female unliecened practioners in both surgery and medicine.

Not being liceinced back then didn't necessarily mean a person wasn't quailfied to good at surgery or medicine. Alot of the people who were admitted to the College or Barber -Surgeons or the Royal College of Physcians got there because who they knew not their skills. :)

[Red Maria]

Amazing. Of course there were lots of mid-wives for birthin' babies, I know. But I didn't realize that folk medicine was still so prevelent.

Thanks for the lesson, matey. I be learnin' new stuff everyday on this board.

You'd be surprised at the variety and number of health care professionals that existed prior to 1800. When I find that book "Health, Medicine, & Mortality in the Sixteenth Century" I'll photocopy the essays on training and education of healthcare professionals in the 16th c. . But it's in a different part of the library and I need to get over to it.

[Capt Grey]

No hurry, Red Maria. You be a wealth o'information on yer own.

I be applyin' fer a part with the Port Royal Privateers and I be thinkin' o'a woman doctor - or physik as ye call it. She be learnin' from her father who left the British Isles cuz o'debt and a love fer the bottle. He still had a love fer the bottle in Port Royal, but workin' with pirates paid the bills. Once he died she sorta took over the business as it were.

(And looking at the fantastic replica medical equipment on the GGGodwin site was quite an education as well; but it will take some time to collect all the pieces I would like to get.)

[Red Maria]

Great that you're applying for PRP! You'll then be me crewmate! :)

Just another chestnut for all out there, there is a book called "The Adventures of Roderick Random" by Tobias Smollett. It is the adventure of a naval surgeon in the mid-18thc. . The author Smollett was a doctor/surgeon in the British navy and the book is considered semi-autobiographical. If you want a sense of what maritime medicine was in the 18th c. it's a great resource.

[Sjöröveren]

Just another chestnut for all out there, there is a book called "The Adventures of Roderick Random" by Tobias Smollett. 

I just googled this title, and the full text is available online at Project Gutenberg ( http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbi...lookup?num=4085 )

It's FREE!

It also appears to be available as a reprint at $8.95. But that ain't free!

[capnwilliam]

Red Maria, and Sjoroveren, you are both great sources of information! Keep it coming! :)

Capt. William

[Capt Grey]

I forgot about Project Gutenberg. Good on ye, mate!

[capnwilliam]

So, Calico Jack, and Sjoroveren, actually portray doctor-types. Does anyone else?

I'm interested in comments from mates who do: what in the way of period medicines/medical instruments they own, where they got them, what they take afloat/afield, how they tote them, do they display and discuss these instruments for the tourists, do they interact with the combatants as doctors/surgeons during battles, etc.

Capt. William

[Red Maria]

I do act as ship's surgeon on the Ravenheart which is one of the two pirate crews I am with. That's why I've done so much research on the subject. If you want to check out that persona here's a link:

http://www.ravenhearts.org/members.htm#fname

I sent in a persona bio but Capt. Colorado hasn't posted it yet.

To tell you the truth the costume is more Red Maria the Artemisia but that’s what the captain wanted!

[Sjöröveren]

So, Calico Jack, and Sjoroveren, actually portray doctor-types. Does anyone else?

I'm interested in comments from mates who do: what in the way of period medicines/medical instruments they own, where they got them, what they take afloat/afield, how they tote them, do they display and discuss these instruments for the tourists, do they interact with the combatants as doctors/surgeons during battles, etc.

Capt. William

I got into reenactment in 1990, starting at Murphy's Landing, a living history village near Minneapolis. I gradually fell into the role of the town doctor, circa 1870. But me real interest in history lay a good century or two before that. I did the local history fair and rendezvous market for a few years, but have never been in a military reenactment setting. It just has no interest for me.

I've cobbled together my collection of instruments from many sources. The best stuff, like fleams, a trephine, a canula and cupping glasses, were bought on ebay. Some things, like scalpels and various knives, I fashioned from other blades. Hint: old manicure kits can easily be remade into catlins, bistoury knives, tenacula, etc. Old soldering irons, if they're small, can be made into cauterizing irons. I've had a blacksmith make specific blades for me once or twice. (It's nice having a blacksmith in your Rolodex, ain't it!)

There's plenty of odds and ends one can make out of cloth or leather, like bandages, tourniquets, etc.

There's still plenty of things I don't have: a proper amputation kit, a spring lancet, retractors, etc. And I can't forget my most popular prop, a realistic human skull with a hole drilled in it -- just like the fellow in "Master and Commander" except mine doesn't have a sovereign stitched into it.

For medicines, I've learned that less is more. There were hundreds of varieties of physick in use, but when it came right down to it, you really only needed the basic diurectics, analgesics, laxatives, purgatives, etc. Whenever possible, I try to get the actual material or chemical. This isn't hard for common things like sulphur or slippery elm. There are some things that one simply can't get anymore, unless you're willing to deal in narcotics. For those, I got descriptions of paregoric, opium and such from a physician, then made reasonable facsimiles out of salt, sugar, food coloring, etc.

I don't use anything fancy to transport them in -- just some wooden boxes. I'd like to get a proper physick cabinet someday.

Hope this helps.

I'd love to hear what other have in their kits.

[Bootstrap Bill Turner]

There was more than one type of mercury treatment. Injection was one, but there also was topical ointment applied directly on the sores, an oral dose, a monstrosic fumigation chamber that wasn't popular and died out as quick as it came and a couple others that my migraine won't allow me to recall

The purpose of the mercury(17th century) was to balance those humors!! An influx of the opposite humor was the treatment therefore we're looking for a very wet reaction. The mercury caused excessive drooling. They measured the drool and when "enough" was provided they assumed it was a cure. Which it never was of course. Rememer!

A night in the arms of Venus means a lifetime on Mercury!

Little bit of 17th century barber-surgeon humor for you

[Red Maria]

Very interesting ideas from Red Maria, about Thomas Dover, the doctor-pirate; and about the concept of a British Navy-trained barber-surgeon who becomes a pirate.

Did the US Navy have any equivalent "Army - Navy certification program" at that time, do you know? 

Capt. William

Capt. William

While I was searching the Reference stacks for something else this book caught my eye in the maritime section:

A History of Medicine in the Early U.S. Navy by Harold D. Langley

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995 ISBN 081848768

In the preface it mentions the establishment of the Bureau of Medicine & Surgery in 1842. Now if that was the first governing board for certifying navy ship surgeons I don't know. But the book looks good and it msy still be available in print. You can try an ILL at your local library or amazon.com or bookfinder.com.

Hope that helps.

[capnwilliam]

Thanks, Maria; I'll have to check this out. Glad you resurrected this most interesting Topic!

Capt. William

[Sjöröveren]

Looks like this title is in print, available from Amazon for $22.75, or in a package deal with Rough Medicine by Joann Druett for $50.75. I'm reading Rough Medicine right now. Very interesting, though it's specifically about surgeons on whalers in the early 19th century. Great appendices, with an exhaustive pharmacopia used by two surgeons, one late 17th and one mid-19th century.