The scale of medicines with which merchant vessels are to be furnished by command of the Privy Council for Trade : with observations on the means of preserving the health of seamen directions for the use of medicines, and for the treatment of various accidents and diseases / by T. Spencer Wells.
- Thomas Spencer Wells
- Date:
- 1861
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The scale of medicines with which merchant vessels are to be furnished by command of the Privy Council for Trade : with observations on the means of preserving the health of seamen directions for the use of medicines, and for the treatment of various accidents and diseases / by T. Spencer Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.
34/236 page 14
![quartermasters and six foremast men were fit for duty besides the officers. The crews of the whole squadron had amounted to upwards of 1200. Within one year after leaving England only 335 remained alive. A Spanish squadron sailed nearly at the same time. The Esperanza lost 392 out of a crew of 450, and other ships nearly in the same proportion. To show that this fearful mortality was no super- natural infliction, but that it depended upon remova- ble causes, we may compare this voyage with that of Cook in 1772. He sailed with the Resolution, carry- ing a crew of 1.12, and the Adventure with a crew of 81. He kept his ships clean and dry; took good stores of wholesome provisions and proper clothing; kept the hammocks, bedding, and clothes of the men as dry as possible; got fresh water, vegetables, and provisions at every opportunity; and the result was, that, on arrival at the Cape, only one man was on the sick list. After leaving the Cape, they were 117 days at sea before reaching JN~ew Zealand; and when they arrived there was only one bad case of scurvy on board. After a voyage of three years, in all varieties of climate, on]y one man died of disease out of the crew of 112 carried in the Resolution. In Cook's last voyage he was away four years, and not a single man of his crew died from disease. Surely nothing can more strongly exemplify the fact that proper care will prevent disease, than a comparison of these voyages of Cook and Anson. We now seldom hear of such mor- tality as that of Anson's crew, or of that of Admiral Hosier, who buried his ship's company twice in 1726.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20396090_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
