A discourse upon some late improvements of the means for preserving the health of mariners. Delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, November 30, 1776 / [Sir John Pringle].
- John Pringle
- Date:
- 1776
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A discourse upon some late improvements of the means for preserving the health of mariners. Delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, November 30, 1776 / [Sir John Pringle]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![An officer of diftinguifhed rank, another of Captain A Cook’s experienced friends, mentioned to me a common and juft obfervation in the fleet; which was, that all the old twenty-gun fhips were remarkably lefs fickly than thofe of the fame fize of a modern conftruction. This, he faid, was a circumftance he could not otherwife ac¬ count for, than that, by the former having their galley [their kitchen] in the fore-part of the orlop, the chimney vented fo ill, that it was fureto fill every part with fmoke whenever the wind was a-ftern: this was a nuifance for the time, but, as he thought, abundantly compenfated by the extraordinary good health of the feveral crews. Pof- fibly the heat of thofe fire-places was alfo beneficial, by drying and. ventilating thofe fhips more when they were below, than they can do now they are placed upon the upper deck under the fore-caftle. But the moft ob vious ufe of the portable fires was their drying up the moifture, and efpecially in thofe places where there was the leaft circulation of air. This hu¬ midity, compofed of the perfpirable matter of a multi¬ tude of men, and often of animals (kept for a live-ftock) and of the fleams of the bilge-water from the well, where the corruption is the greatell; this moifture, I fay, being 5 one](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30790943_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
