Observations on the Diseases of Seamen

24

In this, and the other tables, the smaller fractions are neglected.

25

See the last chapter of Part III (#PART_III_CHAP_IV).

26

In the year 1741, the fleet under Admiral Vernon was at Jamaica at the same time of the year; and the following is the account of the men sent to the hospital in May and June:

There was on board of this fleet about two thirds of the number of men that was on board of the fleet in 1782. I cannot ascertain how many died on board of the ships in Admiral Vernon’s fleet; but the deaths at the hospital alone are somewhat more than what happened to our fleet both on board and at the hospital.

27

I was enabled, after coming to England, to ascertain the deaths in that part of the squadron from which I happened at any time to be absent, by having leave from the Navy Board to inspect the ships’ books deposited at their office.

28

See Appendix to Part II (#APPENDIX_TO_PART_II).

29

The mortality of the army in the West Indies is much greater; for it appears by the returns of the War Office, that there died in the year 1780, two thousand and thirty-six soldiers, which being calculated by the numbers on the station, and those who arrived in the convoy in March and July, the annual mortality is found to be one in four. The greatness of this mortality will appear in a still stronger light, when it is considered that those who serve in the army are the most healthy part of the community. When I was at the encampment at Coxheath in the year 1779, I was politely favoured with a sight of the returns, both of the general officers and physician, and it appeared that in an army of ten thousand and eighty-nine men, there died, from the 10th of June to the 2d of November, forty-three, exclusive of twelve who died of small pox. This being calculated, is equal to an annual mortality of one in a hundred and nine; and it was not half so much in the encampment of the former year. It appears by Mr. Simpson’s tables, that the mortality of mankind in England, from the age of twenty to forty-five, which includes the usual age of those who serve in the navy and army, is one in fifty.

30

See Table II (#TABLE_II).

31

See Table II (#TABLE_II).

32

None are comprehended but those who were killed or wounded in battles in which the whole fleet was present, this account not including those who fell in single actions in frigates or other ships.

33

It would appear, that, anciently, though the slaughter in battle was greater than in modern times, yet that disease was still more destructive than the sword. One of the oldest testimonies to this purpose is in the History of Alexander’s Expedition, by Arrian – τους μεν ἐν ταῖς μαχαις ἀπολωλεκασιν, ὁι δε ἐκ των τραυματων ἀπομαχοι γεγενημενοι, ὁι πλειοῦς δε νοσω ἀπολωλεσαν. – Arrian. Hist. Alex. Exped.

    Lib. v. cap. 26.

34

Upwards of three thousand were also lost at sea in ships of war belonging to the same fleets in the hurricane of October, 1780, and in the storm in September, 1782, in which the Ville de Paris and the other French prizes were lost on their passage to England.

35

The authors from whom I have borrowed have been chiefly Dr. Lind and Capt. Cook. To the former we are indebted for the most accurate observations on the health of seamen in hot climates; of the improvements made by the latter, an excellent compendium may be seen in Sir John Pringle’s Discourse before the Royal Society, on the occasion of adjudging a prize medal to Capt. Cook for his paper upon this subject.

36

In the late war sickness alone was not the cause of want of success in any instance, except in the last action in the East Indies, in which so many men were ill of the scurvy, that there were not hands enow to manage the guns.

There is another fact in history, which, though not so applicable to this subject as those above recited, forcibly evinces how important a study the health of men ought to be in military affairs. When Henry V. was about to invade France, he had an army of fifty thousand men; but owing to a sickness which arose in the army, in consequence of some delays in the embarkation, their number was reduced to ten thousand at the battle of Agincourt. The disease of which they chiefly died was the dysentery.

    Rapin.

37

It is not meant by this to insinuate that every commander is absolutely accountable for the health of his ship’s company, and censurable when they are sickly; for this may depend on his predecessor in command, or a stubborn infection may have prevailed from the original fitting out or manning of the ship which he may not have superintended.

38

Οὐ γαρ ἐγωγέ τι οῗδα κακώτερον ἄλλο θαλάσσης,
Ανδεά τε συγχεῦαι, εἰ καὶ μάλα καρτερὸς εἴη.

    ΟΜΗΡ. ΟΔΥΣ. Θ.
Dire is the ocean, dread in all its forms!
Man must decay, when man contends with storms.

    Pope.

39

Wherever causes are obscure, superstition naturally ascribes them to some preternatural influence; and what seemed farther to have encouraged this, anciently, was, that violent epidemics occurred most frequently in camps and at sieges where great political conjunctures were likely to arise, in which superior powers were supposed to interest themselves. Thus we read in Homer of fatal diseases being sent as punishments by the gods. But the pestilential diseases so often mentioned by poets and historians as prevailing in cities and armies, were probably nothing else but fevers, produced partly perhaps by the scarcity and bad quality of provisions, but probably still more by corrupted human effluvia, which was very apt to he produced by the want of personal cleanliness, to which the mode of cloathing among the ancients would more particularly subject them, especially in camps and besieged towns.

40

If the experiments of modern philosophy are to be depended on, they go a certain way to account for the unwholesomeness of air from woods in hot climates, and in wet weather; for Dr. Ingenhousz found that the effluvia of plants in the night time, and in the shade, are more poisonous in hot than in cold weather; but though there is a salubrity in the effluvia in sunshine, the heat of the weather makes no difference with regard to this. He found also that vegetables, when wet, yield an unwholesome air.

It is difficult to ascertain how far the influence of vapours from woods and marshes extend; but there is reason to think that it is to a very small distance. When the ships watered at Rock Fort, they found that if they anchored close to the shore, so as to smell the land air, the health of the men was affected; but upon removing two cables length, no inconvenience was perceived. I was informed of the following fact, in proof of the same, by the medical gentlemen who attended the army in Jamaica: – The garrison of Fort Augusta, which stands very near some marshes, to which it is to leeward when the land wind blows, was yet remarkably healthy; but it became at one time extremely sickly upon the breaking in of the sea in consequence of a high tide, whereby the water which was retained in the hollows of the fort produced a putrid moisture in the soil, exhaling a vapour offensive to the smell, and with all the noxious effects upon health commonly arising from the effluvia of marshes.

41

Dr. Hendy has lately published an ingenious treatise upon this disease.

42

See Sydenham’s Works.

43

See Part I. Book II. Chap. VI (#BOOK_II_CHAP_VI).

44