 |
Is There a Doctor on the Ship?
|
|
Disease was part of life aboard ship. It was common for sailors to come on board with diseases such as chicken pox or measles; these rapidly spread to others in the tight quarters. Diseases were contracted in ports while the crew was on shore leave. Dysentary, typhus fever, and syphilis all could be traced to contact on shore. Malaria would be contracted from mosquitoes in tropical climates. Any diseases involving vomiting and diarrhea were called the flux. Still other ailments came from the food.
Food poisoning was common, as was scurvy. Bread would often turn moldy, or turn so hard sailors would have to soak it (sometimes in seawater) to even bite into it. On some occasions they would eat in the dark so they wouldn’t have to see the bugs or worms in their food. As you might expect, many sailors returned from a voyage suffering from malnutrition.
Most ships' captains did very little to assist the sick sailors; many sailors would die at sea. Doctors did travel on board, but their remedies of purging (giving something that made you vomit) and bleeding probably harmed more than they helped. Techniques like scrubbing the ships with vinegar helped control the bad smells (it actually killed germs). Most sailors were left to survive on will power and a hope to get home soon.
The shipboard health conditions were so poor that books and papers were written on the subject. Captain Cook adopted a set of health measures after many trials on his voyages. The following are measures he suggested and the ones he decided to adopt on a regular basis.
Health Measures that Captain Cook Used
1. Personal hygiene: cold bathing, exercise on shore, clean dry clothes, hammocks, bedding
2. Ship hygiene: cleanliness, ventilation, fumigation (killing fungus and mold)
3. Galley hygiene: scoured ship's coppers (clean cooking pots)
4. Water: abundant and fresh water intake
5. Food: reduced salt meat, prohibition of meat fat; fresh meat, vegetables, sugar in lieu of oil, wheat in lieu of oatmeal
6.
Antiscorbutics: such as
oranges or lemons (good sources of vitamin C)
Captain James Cook (b. 1728 - d. 1779)
 |
English naval officer, surveyor, and explorer. In 1768, made his first famous journey to observe the eclipse of the planet Venus and to determine the existence of a southern continent. In 1772, sailed on his second voyage to search for the fabled southern continent (Antarctica) and discovered several Pacific islands. During his final voyage in 1776, he sailed in the Pacific and searched for a Northwest Passage in higher latitudes. He was killed in Hawaii in 1779. He was the first sea captain to prevent the spread of scurvy and other diseases aboard ship. He was one of the first to carry a chronometer, rather than rely on dead reckoning thus assisting him in determining his exact position on the globe.
Vocabulary:
Bow – the front of a vessel
Chronometer - a mechanical device for keeping time independent of ship's motion
Dead reckoning - estimating location and speed using a variety of different methods including wind, waves, bird sightings, and current; navigators would often drop a piece of wood tied to a string into the water and estimate the time it took it to travel from bow to stern
Scurvy - a deficiency of vitamin C; symptoms include nausea, weakness, loss of hair and teeth, and eventual death; caused by a lack of fruits and vegetables in the diet; more sailors died of this than any other cause
Stern – the rear of a vessel