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.