Observations on the Diseases of Seamen

by Sir Gilbert Blane

When a ship is in port, encouragement should be given to the sale of roots, greens, fruits, and sugar. The men have a good custom of exchanging part of their bread, beef, and pork, for what they can get from the shore; but as they in general prefer spirituous liquors to the above-mentioned articles, the greatest care and vigilance should be used to preclude men from such opportunities of injuring themselves[73]. Every ship should be furnished with a seine, and other implements for fishing, when in harbour.

When captures are made, in which there are such articles as sugar, wine, rice, or fruits, it would be much better in many cases to allow the immediate use of them at sea, where the men may be disposed to scurvy or other diseases, than to wait for the conversion of them into money.

Though it has been my object to introduce as many articles of diet as possible, independent of salt provisions, it does not follow that these are in themselves unwholesome. They are pernicious by being made almost the sole and exclusive article; but if used in moderate quantity, they are even in some respects well adapted for the food of seamen. The nature of their life gives them a strong digestion: in their duties they not only employ violent exercise, but use more muscles and a greater variety of postures and motions than men of any other profession. To such constitutions may not food of a refractory nature and hard of digestion have even an advantage over what is more delicate and digestible?

It does not appear that it is the salt quality of the provisions used at sea that makes them productive of scurvy, but the want of their native juices and of the nutritious principle. A small quantity of salt is necessary to make all food palatable and wholesome, in so much that it is reckoned one of the necessaries of life. All animals have a craving for sea salt, and nature has kindly made it the most abundant and universal of all saline bodies. Food, without this seasoning, not only comes to be loathed, but the want of it renders the animal weak and flabby. As it not only assists digestion, but invigorates all the bodily functions by stimulating and bracing the fibres, it is in some cases a valuable medicine. It is remarkable that men are very apt to tire of a long continuance of fresh provisions[74], but never of what is salt; and even under the scurvy the latter will be relished, and sometimes preferred to most other kinds of food. It has been a practice with some to make the scorbutic men drink sea water; but though it is not attended with any manifest benefit, I never heard that it aggravated the disease.

I was told by the gentlemen of the army at New York in 1780, that the soldiers in cantonments were not near so subject to agues as the people of the country; and the only difference in their mode of life was, that the former had in their allowance a certain, proportion of salt provisions.

In an unhealthy country I should think a free use of salt, as well as spice[75], would be salutary; and when ships are in port it would perhaps be better to allow a certain proportion of salt provisions, because it would not only be wholesome and agreeable, but the men’s constitutions would probably be more reconciled to an entire salt diet when necessary: but I would except from this the crews of such ships as have newly arrived from a long cruise or voyage, in which it may be necessary to alter the constitution as quickly as possible by a diet entirely fresh.

Nothing that I have collected from my own observation, or that of others, has been neglected under this head, except one particular caution with regard to the preparation of the victuals. The large utensils employed to boil the provisions are made of copper, and it sometimes happens from neglect that these are allowed to contract a rust, which is one of the most active poisons we know. The neglect consists chiefly in allowing any thing acid, or what is liable to become acid, such as gruel or burgoo, to remain for a length of time without being washed out; for when victuals have been prepared in the boilers thus uncleaned, they produce the most violent effects, even to the loss of life, as once happened in a ship belonging to our fleet[76].

SECT. II. Of Drink.

As the solid part of sea diet is very dry and hard, and as the salt it contains is apt to excite thirst, a freer use of liquids than at land is necessary, particularly in a hot climate.

It has been the custom, as far back as we know, to allow seamen the use of some sort of fermented liquor. We need hardly inquire if this is salutary or not; for it would be impossible at any rate to withhold it, since it is an article of luxury, and a gratification which the men would claim as their right. There is a great propensity in seamen to intoxicating liquors, which is probably owing to the hardships they undergo, and to the variety and irregularity of a sea life. But there is reason to think that all sorts of fermented liquors, except distilled spirits, are conducive to health at sea.