Much to my surprise, I found two journals kept by surgeons
on American whalers. One was kept by Dr.
Tom Noddy, who joined the New Bedford ship Java, in December 1854. The ship was in Honolulu, provisioning for
the homeward passage, and Dr. Noddy, it seems, wanted to work his passage to
the Atlantic. Perhaps he had failed to
establish a practice in the Islands, or maybe he had been fired from his job on
an English whaleship—which often happened.
Whatever his record, Captain John Lawrence was pleased to take him on,
because after several years at sea his crew was run down with hard living at
sea and alcoholic sprees in port. As
events proved, however, Tom Noddy spent more time medicating Lawrence’s dogs—“a
pair of Russian hounds brought from the Okhotsk Sea”—which were subject to fits
of madness that cleared the decks like a hail of shot, than he did in treating
the men.
The other man to medicate an American crew was Dr. John King
of Nantucket, who in 1837 abandoned his fledgling practice to run away to sea
on the Aurora. Amazingly, he
signed on as a seaman, to serve “before the mast.” Why he had made this very strange decision is
unknown, but the fact remains that he was prepared to live in the damp, noisome
forecastle with the other common sailors, bunking in a narrow wooden berth with
two dozen companions snoring and cursing around him, eating plain, greasy food
that had been sent down in a common bucket, urinating into a barrel, and easing
his bowels over the bow of the ship.
Captain Hussey, finding a physician in his forecastle, had foresight
enough to bring him aft, give him a cabin, and re-ship him as the surgeon. It is impossible to tell if the young doctor
felt cheated of some strange ambition, since he did not confide his feelings to
his journal. Instead, he immediately
demonstrated that he was a conscientious and dutiful man, for one of his first
actions after settling in and looking around was to check off the contents of
the ship’s medical chest.
1. Alum
(potassium aluminum sulfate) — astringent gargle
2. Antimonial
wine (used with tinct. opium for coughs)
3. Basilicon
ointment (resin, oil, and lard)
4. Blister
plaster
5. Blue vitriol
(copper sulfate) — for burning ulcers
6. Burgundy
pitch (spruce tree resin) — for blister plasters
7. Calomel
& Jalap — mercurous chloride plus Ipomoea purga powder
8. Calomel
pills (one part mercurous chloride, one part sulfurated antimony, two parts of
guaiacum resin, with castor oil and alcohol)
9. Calomel
(mercurous chloride)
10. Chamomile
Flowers
11. Castor oil
12. Camphor gum —
camphor resin, expectorant
13. Salts of
lemon — citric acid
14. Cream of
tartar
15. Dover’s
powder — ipecac plus opium
16. Balsam
copaiba — of Copaifera tree
17. Elixir
vitriol — aromatic sulphuric acid — acid, alcohol, ginger, cinnamon
18. Emetic tartar
— tartarated antimony
19. Ether — ethyl
oxide
20. Flaxseed —
linseed
21. Flowers of
Sulphur
22. Ipecac —
dried root of Cephalis ipecacuanha
23. Kino — dried
and powdered sap of Pterocarpus marsupium —astringent, for dysentery
24. Laudanum —
opium, saffron, cinnamon, and cloves macerated in Spanish wine
25. Mercurial
ointment — mercury, lard, suet
26. Nitre
27. Olive oil
28. Opium pills
29. Paregoric —
tinct. opium plus benzoic acid, camphor, anise, alcohol
30. Essence of
peppermint
31. Rhubarb
(officinale)
32. Simple
ointment — wax plus lard
33. Spts.
hartshorn — carbonated ammonia
34. Spts. Nitre —
Sweet spirits of nitrous ether
35. Sugar of Lead
— lead acetate
36. Syrup of
squills — Scilla maritima plus honey
37. Liquid
opopeldoc — soft soap, ammonia, essential oils
38. Tinct. of
myrrh
39. Tinct. of
Guaiac
40. White vitriol
— zinc sulfate
41. Quinine
42. Tinct. of
rhubarb
43. Gum Arabic
44. Blue pill —
two parts of mercury, three confection of roses, one part powdered licorice
root
45. Strengthening
plaster
46. Ashesive
plaster
47. Glauber salts
— hydrated sodium sulfate
Chloride of
lime
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