Nelson & His World

Whilst idly browsing, I came across a forum on which a passing reference was made to hospital ships in Nelson's navy. Since I don't know how authoritative it is, I won't quote the source; nor can I guarantee the information below. However, my interest was aroused and I would be intrigued to know more.

Apparently, the Royal Navy started using hospital ships in the 18th century. There was one named 'Goodwill' - date unknown. In 1797, the hospital ship 'Dolphin' was part of Nelson's squadron in the Mediterranean, and there was one at the 'Glorious First of June' - name unknown; and the hospital ship 'Charon' was at Palermo in 1799.

By 1805, there were six hospital ships: 'Matilda', 'Argonaut' and 'Caton', all taken from the French, 'Prince Frederick' taken from the Dutch, and also 'Experiment' (one of Nelson's old ships?) and 'Sussex'.

The hospital ships, it seems, were really places to dump the wounded out of the way rather than to offer specialised care. Most of the nurses were drunks and/or prostitutes.

Can anyone confirm (or correct) this information or add more?

Elderly warships fitted out as hospitals were used in the 17th century (i.e. the Helderenberg in 1688) and merchant ships were regularly hired into service for use as hospitals throughout the 18th century; in 1702 the List shows the Anthelope, Princess Ann, Jeffereys, Smirna and Syam merchant vessels serving with the fleet as hospitals.

In the Napoleonic War, the navy used the unfortunately named Charon 1793 - 1799 in which Doctor Thomas Trotter served and later wrote of his experiences; in addition the Roebuck, Africa, Medusa, Alkmaar, Trent and Jupiter all served time as hospital ships. In addition merchant ships were occasionally hired, such as the Lioness.

Reading the accounts of naval surgeons, such as Trotter, Lind or Blane one gets the impression that the sick were certainly not dumped onboard, and the doctors tried very hard to deal with sickness and injury, although I do believe that the nursing staff were of variable quality.

To quote from Trotters jounal, when he was in Lord Howes Fleet in 1794.

"May 13 this day one man in small-pox, and another in measles, both in a state of eruption sent onboard the Charon from the Gibraltar. The diseases did not extend to any other person. Six seamen, and the gunners child were inoculated, in consequence, onboard the hospital ship all of which had the disease in the mildest degree

May 17 the fever list is at present ten, but so gentle are the compaints that none are confined to bed; one man died since leaving port, a landman.

May 17 two French prisoners in fever sent to the Charon from the Thunderer, one of them died the next day; the infection did not extend ..."

later he worked hard to deal with an outbreak of scurvy...he dealt with the sick by serving " ...large quantity of salad" and "a supper of sowens (oatmeal) with sugar and wine" in addition "the lemon juice retained its power". In September 1795 the Charon being ordered to proceed to join the blockading squadron off Bellisle, Trotter notes that he embarked "..a quantity of stock, apples, vegetables, porter etc". He later boasted that "the hospital ship was even stored with delicacies and a bill of fare such as no hospital in Europe at this moment can equal"

Yes, I'm not sure the picture was a black as you paint, Tycho, and great advances were actually being made in naval medicine and the treatment of seamen. As a point of interest, probably not many seamen would have been happy being aboard a hospital ship named 'Charon'!

One of the ships which was used as a hopital ship, albeit briefly, was 'Victory' herself. In 1797, following Cape St Vincent and when the 'Ville de Paris' was made available, Jervis transferred to her from the 'Victory' which then sailed home for a badly-needed refit. She was moored in the Medway, apparently as a hospital ship for French prisoners of war. What then followed was of some note, since the Admiralty wanted to reduce her to a hulk seeing her condition. However the Navy Board pointed out that to take this step would, in their opinion, have made her reconversion to a first rate, almost impossible and the Admiralty took the point. (Ref. 'HMS Victory - Her Construction, Career and Restoration', Alan McGowan.)

Seeing what happened to her later, perhaps it was as well they did!

Many thanks, both, for that interesting information: so the hospital ships were used to care for the sick and diseased as well as ad hoc 'field hospitals' in the exigences of battle.

One example I have come across was probably fairly grim. After the Battle of Frigate Bay at St Kitts in 1782, Samuel Hood pressed a collier (emptied of its coal!) into service as a hospital ship. The hospital ship remained with the fleet, anchored in Basseterre Road off the French occupied island for three weeks, while Hood successfully defending the anchorage against a superior enemy fleet. But when all hope of relieving the island had passed, Hood escaped unnoticed by the French fleet under cover of darkness - the ships cut their anchor cables in succession, formed the line ahead, and silently departed. De Grasse recorded that ‘the next morning I found only the sick whom he had left behind’. Hood had left his hospital ship behind to the care of the French.

The Dolphin, mentioned by Tycho, was of course commanded for a while by Nelson's stepson.

My ancestor's younger brother, while still a lieutenant, died in 1801 commanding L’Engageante, a hospital ship at Cork. He had only been in command a week, following the death of the previous commander, so maybe it wasn't a healthy post.

P-N mentions 'Trotter, Lind and Blane' as examples of assiduous physicians to sailors of the RN.

One encounters articles and essays on naval medicine and medical pracititioners but I wonder if any major work has been published which collates the achievements of these, and many other remarkable naval doctors.

Dr Trotter, for example, receives honourable mention in an article I came across on the history of the General Infirmary, Newcastle on Tyne. Dr Trotter lived in the city after his retirement from the navy, brought about by a 'hurt received while visiting a wounded officer.'

The article, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... mpid=43377 (scroll right down to the end to read about Trotter) records that he 'discharged his difficult and important duties with unexampled diligence and ability'. He was nominated Physician to the Channel Fleet by Lord Howe purely on his professional reputation. He produced a respected work 'Medicina Nautica' including an essay on typhus which was 'a most finished work'.

Amongst other things, Dr Trotter controlled within ten days a dangerous contagious fever that was raging amongst French prisoners, and 'when the late Earl St Vincent was boasting of the many good things that he had done for the navy, Admiral Sir Edward Thornborough replied, 'True, my lord, you did much; but there is one man who did more for the navy of this country than you or any person who ever existed and that man was Dr Trotter, who has been shamefully neglected'. He received a pension of only ten shillings a day. Like Dr Baird, another distinguished doctor, he seems to have been a rather proud and prickly man, unwilling to solicit help or favour, but a most diligent and caring doctor.

Trotter also 'courted the Muses' and published poetry in 'different literary journals', including a poem to Dr Jenner, the father of vaccination, which has 'peculiar beauties'. Where are they now, I wonder.

I wonder if any diligent researcher might be minded, if it hasn't been done already, to locate all the existing biographical material available about these men and bring them to the greater prominence they deserve. We've all heard of Florence Nightingale, after all.

The tradition of honourable medical service continues to this day. I wonder if anyone remembers a remarkable film made during the Falklands conflict of the services of a naval surgeon who achieved miracles in the most primitive conditions, including life-saving work on Argentinian prisoners whose wounds had been neglected or mishandled by their own medical men.

I was delighted to read on another forum that a biography of Dr Trotter is currently being written by Brian Vale, who has written much on 'our' period, not least an excellent biography of Cochrane which was commended by N.A.M. Rodger for its detached and balanced approach.

I was also guided to Dr Trotter's poems, including the one on Jenner, which are available on Googlebooks. There is also a rare original copy of 'Sea Weeds' as he called his collection, on abebooks - at £200! The poems are, as I suspected, written mainly in 'heroic couplets', in the typically grandiose and overblown language of much 18th century poetry; but they are of historical interest, nonetheless. The one on Dr Jenner is there, and also an elegy for Captain Robert Faulknor, a courageous and distinguished officer who is mentioned on another thread.

The more one reads of naval doctors like Baird and Trotter the more one is fllled with admiration for their professional skills and their humane and dedicated service. I hope that Brian Vale's forthcoming work will bring them into greater, and well-deserved, prominence.

Hello Everybody: I'm a new boy!

I have read the correspondence about Hospital Ships with great interest. All were different, but you may be interested in a few facts that have come my way about one of them - the unfortunately named 'Charon.' Hopefully, most of the navy's ABs had not had a classical education!

'Charon' was an old small two decker which had been useful as a cruising ship in the mid 1700's but by 1793 had become obsolete. She was 'rebranded' and commissioned as a Hospital Ship in the autumn. With one of her decks disarmed and converted into an isolation ward she was ideal for the purpose. In addition to her surgeon and 2 mates, she carried a hospital staff of 16 persons - a Matron, Martha Simmons, 5 female nurses , 3 male orderlies, 6 washerwomen and a baker. She was not however totally disarmed and continued to carry artillery and a crew of 120 including gunners and 15 marines. She was also the floating headquarters of the Physician of the Channel Fleet, Thomas Trotter.

'Charon', and her successor 'Medusa', accompanied the fleet whenever it put to sea, and she was present at the Glorious First of June, positioned with other smaller ships behind the line of battle, immediately behind the 'Queen Charlotte'. This gave Trotter a grandstand view which enabled him to write a poem about the encounter. She was (according to 'Trotter') equipped with every luxury in term of supplies and medicines. Indeed, when the Spithead mutineers included a beef about the treatment of the sick in their complaints, Trotter shamed them by inviting the delegates aboard 'Medusa' and showing them what was on offer. Both hospital ships also carried huge quantities of lemon juice which was issued regularly to any ships in the fleet which showed signs of scurvy. This was on the insistence of the Admirals (and Trotter) and was done in spite of the advice of the outside medical establishment which still believed scurvy was a digestive complaint best cured by drinking infusions of malt.

The standard of naval medicine improved greatly between 1770 and 1790 and this seems to apply to the nurses as well. I have seen no criticisms of their behaviour at this time. A friend however once showed me an annual report written by a Hospital Ship captain in the 1750s (I think) which said something along the lines of 'it has been a good year except for the nurses who are regularly drunk'!

Brian

Brian:

thank you for that interesting and informative post. On the 'Wind of Ball' post on page 2, I mention an article by a surgeon, Tony Harrison, who also concluded that the rise in calibre of ships' medical men in the latter half of the eighteenth century was remarkable. Presumably, one measure of their success was a reduction in death rates. Considering that this improvement occurred before the discovery of anaesthesia to minimise shock and antiseptics to minimise infection, I wonder how this was achieved?

Incidentally, I have tried to find Tony Harrison's interesting article on the website of the Historical Maritime Society www.hms.org.uk to no avail.

Tycho

I think the answer to the question about the improvement in health during the second half of the 18thC lies in the fact that only a minority of fatalities in the navy were due to battle casualties. The majority were due to infectious diseases - typhus in home waters, yellow fever in the tropics and scurvy everywhere. Contemporary statistics do not quite give the real picture as they only show those who were hospitalised - not those who were sick or died on ships. Blane however gives an idea in his report on the W Indies squadron in April 1782. At that time (the 'healthy season' but after the Battle of the Saints) he shows that of 21,608 men in total, 849 were out of action due to battle wounds, 1850 because of flux or fever and 229 due to scurvy. In June, 155 died of disease. At the Saints, 243 is the figure generally given for deaths.

After 1790, vigorous measures were taken to control typhus and other fevers by fumigation and improved cleanliness and, of course, the introduction of lemon juice and fresh veg caused a sharp decline in scurvy. In 1779, 28 592 men were invalided to hospitals (out of 70,000): in 1804 only 11,978 (out of 100,000).

Brian

Brian:

many thanks for that informative post.

I am sure I recall reading a reference somewhere - and failed to make a note to follow it up - that the effectiveness of vitamin C as a cure for scurvy was known some time before it was actually made available; and that there was some debate about whether it was also a preventative. I believe that Nelson, while convinced of the curative powers of vitamin C never accepted that it was a preventative.

Do you know any more about this?

Tycho,

You are right. That citrus juices cured scurvy was remarked on noted far back by people like Hawkins and Drake. Drs Woodall and Bachstrom both noted it in their books of 1617 and 1734, but has to admit they didn't know why it worked. Consequently all this evidence was seen as anecdotal and unscientific by the medical establishment and had no impact on medical theory. Lind's trial on the 'Salisbury' in 1747, likewise made no impact. Convinced it was a digestive disease, the medical establishment went down false trails in search of cure, in the 18thC backing first the drinking of 'elixir of vitriol' (ie sulphuric acid with barley water) then infusions of malt and wort.

The evidence shows that opinion in the navy after 1780 was more and more convinced of the curative impact of citrus juice and, in 1793, the admirals took the bull by the horns and demanded lemons in defiance of the medical establishment ashore.

As Physician of the Channel Fleet from 1794, Thomas Trotter was a leading voice in the debate. He believed that scurvy could be prevented by ample supplies of fresh veg (mostly greens and leeks), and cured by lemon juice. He was convinced however that juice should not be used as a preventive as it weakened the body and destroyed fat.

His objections were ignored however by admirals and captains. This was because 1) they were impressed by the voyage of 'Suffolk' to India - scurvy free because of daily lemon juice, 2) carrying a few casks of juice was much more convenient than landing pursers to haunt the vegetable markets looking for tons of cabbages and 3) in the winter, fresh veg was often unobtainable anyway.

The policy of daily issues of lemon juice throughout the fleet was decided on in early 1796, and after a false start, finally became a reality in 1800 on the insistence of St Vincent backed by Dr Andrew Baird who was an enthusiast and seems not to have shared Trotter's opinion.

Nelson however seems to have agreed with Trotter. In Roger Knight's biography, he quotes a letter from Nelson to Baird, who was then working with him, dated 2 Sept 1803 in which he said
'..... Lemon Juice, taken properly is probably the finest anti-scorbutic in the World, but abused (underlined) the destroyer of the strongest constitution. My use of it is perhaps in direct contadiction to yours.'

Trotter treated Nelson's eye in Plymouth just before Copenhagen. Perhaps he had a word with him about scurvy!

Brian

Many thanks for that most interesting post, Brian.

I wonder how ships carried lemon juice on long sea voyages when they could not easily obtain fresh supplies ashore. Vitamin C is destroyed by exposure to air and light so, if they didn't carry whole lemons - and I'm sure I recall one of Nelson's doctors contracting an illness while seeking lemon juice ashore, as opposed to whole lemons, they would have had to seal the squeezed lemon juice in airtight containers (barrels? Which would keep out the light as well.) They would have lost some vitamin C in the process, but clearly not all. Whatever they did, it obviously worked and banished scurvy!

Tycho!

Acording to Lloyd and Coulter,between 1795 and 1805, the Navy issued approx 160,000 of gallons of juice a year. Only 42,000 came from Britain, the rest were found locally overseas, notably Sicily which supplied 90,000 gallons.

I don't know how local c-in-c' managed to store the juice, but supplies from the Sick and Hurt Board in Britain came in partitioned boxes (the same as were used to transport gin!), each containing 18 round glass bottles, each box containing 9 gallons.

Brian

Thanks, again, Brian, for the input here.

I note with interest that it was recognised early on that lemon juice had to be issued daily for it to be effective. Vitamin C can't be stored by the body; the human system simply takes what it needs and excretes the rest so there has to be a steady, daily supply to avert Vitamin C deficiency - and they'd worked that out!