[194] Essay on Preserving the Health of Seamen, Lond. 1757; Two papers etc. u. s.
[195] In 1755 a pestilential sickness raged in the North American fleet, the ‘Torbay’ and ‘Munich’ being obliged to land their sick at Halifax.
[196] The Gentleman’s Magazine for December, 1772 (p. 589), records the following: “The bodies of two Dutchmen who were thrown overboard from a Dutch East Indiaman, where a malignant fever raged, were cast up near the Sally Port at Portsmouth; they were so offensive that it was with difficulty that anyone could be got to bury them.”
[197] W. Brownrigg, M.D. Considerations on preventing Pestilential Contagion. London, 1771, p. 36.
[198] Lind writes in his book on the Health of Seamen, “The sources of infection to our armies and fleets are undoubtedly the jails: we can often trace the importers of it directly from them. It often proves fatal in impressing men on the hasty equipment of a fleet. The first English fleet sent last war to America lost by it alone two thousand men.”
[199] R. Robertson, M.D. Observations on Jail, Hospital or Ship Fever from the 4th April, 1776, to the 30th April, 1789, made in various parts of Europe and America and on the Intermediate Seas. London, 1789. New edition.
[200] Given by Blane in a Postscript to his paper “On the Comparative Health of the British Navy, 1779-1814” in Select Dissertations, London, 1822, p. 62.
[201] Blane, u. s. p. 47, from information supplied by Dr John Lind, of Haslar Hospital.
[202] Diseases incident to Seamen, p. 18.
[203] Ibid. p. 34.