Medicine Under Sail

Dr Johnson famously declared that being in a ship was like being in jail, but with the chance of being drowned. He may not have known that the seamen of those days had an even greater chance of dying of disease, for reasons that are explained in this book. Its title should be read with care: it is literally concerned with medicine, less attention being devoted to surgery, the horrors of which will be known to any reader of the naval history of the period. The author, himself a Professor of Surgery, found it difficult to establish the precise facts...