Observations on the Diseases of Seamen

by Sir Gilbert Blane

[7] They were the Formidable and Namur, of 90 guns; the Arrogant, Conqueror, Marlborough, Hercules, and Fame, of 74 guns; the Yarmouth, Repulse, Prothée, Anson, and Nonsuch, of 64 guns.

[8] These were the Prince George, of 90; the Bedford, Canada, and Royal Oak, of 74; the America and Prudent, of 64 guns.

[9] This is a term in use for the different articles of seamen’s cloathing, particularly shirts and trowsers.

[10] The mortification in the shoulder, mentioned above, was somewhat singular. It happened to a man in the Yarmouth, who, after being for a week ill of a fever and flux, was one day, early in the morning, seized with a pain in the upper part of the right arm, which immediately began to mortify. He soon after became convulsed, and died the same day about two o’clock.

[11] Earthquakes are frequent in the West Indies, and perhaps proceed from a weaker operation of the same cause that originally produced the islands themselves, which seem all to have been raised from the sea by subterraneous fire. There are evident vestiges of volcanoes in them all, except Barbadoes; but there are other unequivocal marks of this island having been raised from the bottom of the sea; for it is entirely formed of coral, and other sub-marine productions, of which the strata are broken, and the parts set at angles to each other, as might be expected from such a cause. There is, perhaps, at all times in the caverns of the earth, elastic vapour struggling to vent itself, and when near the surface, it may sometimes overcome the incumbent masses of matter, and produce certain convulsions of nature. In the account of the hurricane which I wrote to Dr. Hunter, I gave reasons for believing, from the testimony of the inhabitants, that hurricanes are attended with earthquakes; and if a conjecture might be advanced concerning the cause of this, it might be said, that as the atmosphere is lighter at that time, by several inches of the barometer, the elastic vapour, confined by the weight of the incumbent earth and atmosphere, being less compressed, may exert some sensible effects, producing a sort of explosion.

[12] Since the publication of the first edition of this work I have been informed that this complaint is not so rare on shore as in the fleet, which may be partly owing to the greater coolness of the air at sea, and partly from the seamen not having been a sufficient length of time in the climate to be affected with this disease, as few of them had been more than two years from England. But as this affection of the liver was very common in the fleets and naval hospitals in the East Indies, it is evident that there is a great difference of the climates in this respect. It is worth remarking, that it sometimes breaks out in the West-India Islands like an epidemic. The complaint, for instance, was very little known in the island of Grenada, till about the year 1785, when it became very frequent in a particular quarter of the island; and the gentleman who sent the description of it to England alledged, that there were the most unequivocal proofs of its being contagious. It was most successfully treated by very copious bloodletting, and in exciting a salivation by mercury. See Dr. Duncan’s Medical Commentaries, Decad. 2, vol. I.

[13] Dr. Lind, on the authority of Mr. Ives, surgeon to Admiral Matthews.

[14] London Gazette, June, 1781.

[15] This is well illustrated by the manner in which Captain Nott, of the Centaur, was killed in Fort-Royal Bay. This brave man, having carried his Ship nearer the enemy than the rest of the line, but nevertheless at a great distance, had his signal made to keep the line, and having gone into his cabin, as it is said, to examine the import of the signal, a cannon ball struck him in the groin, and it was so far spent, that it stuck in his body. It tore away a whole plank of the ship’s side, the splinters of which killed a young gentleman, the only person near him.

[16] I have seen an account of the diseases of the army at St. Lucia for a whole year, kept by Mr. Everard Home, an ingenious gentleman belonging to the army hospital, and it appears, that, during ten months out of the twelve, the dysentery was the predominant disease. This seems to contradict the opinion, that the land air is more apt to occasion fevers than fluxes; but it is to be remarked, that the sickness of the soldiers on this island was not so much owing to the malignant influence of the air, the situation of the garrison being high and airy, as to the bad accommodations and provisions, together with hard labour.