The health of the Royal Navy considered, in a letter addressed to the Rt. Hon. Sir John S. Pakington, ... / by Gavin Milroy.

  • Milroy, Gavin, 1805-1886.
Date:
1862
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The health of the Royal Navy considered, in a letter addressed to the Rt. Hon. Sir John S. Pakington, ... / by Gavin Milroy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    With so much endemic sickness, it is not wonderful that Sheer- ness is said to be spoken of, at Chatham hospital, as “the African station of our home service.”—Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, for 1859. Yellow Fever in Ships of War; effects of landing the sick.— Vide p. 33. “ The great and most important practical question arises, is it safe to permit the sick persons from such a vessel as the Highflyer, to he landed among a healthy community ? This question was put to me, and, fortified in the opinion at which I had arrived by the results of many similar experiments in this place, I recom- mended that there should be no interruption to the Highflyer's people communicating with the shore; but intimated that it would be dangerous for strangers to he exposed to the atmosphere of the ship, so long as the disease continued in her. There has been no interruption to the communication of the Highflyer's officers and men with the shore ; her sick have been in proximity with a con- siderable number of surgical cases from the other ships in the hos- pital, and with a large proportion of the crew of the Persian, affected with a malarious fever. “No single instance of any kind of fever followed the landing of the Highflyer's sick, or the free intercourse of her officers, stewards, and people with the town, either in the hospital or in the town. “I have witnessed and watched the progress of so many epide- mics in this place, as to feel perfectly satisfied that any contagious powers the disease may possess in crowded ships, is speedily ren- dered inoperative by moderately good ventilation; and that the best mode of checking the progress of such diseases is to remove the sick to roomy quarters on shore as speedily as possible.”— Report of Mr. Watson, Medical Officer of Port Royal Naval Hospital, printed by order of the House of Commons, May 1853. Mr. Watson and Deputy Inspector Dr. Wingate Johnston were at Port Royal when I was in Jamaica, in 1851, and with both these gentlemen I had frequent opportunities of inspecting the ships of war, and the large naval hospital on the station. In the dispatch of the Governor of Barbadoes to the Right Hon. Sir J. S. Pakington, Secretary of State for the Colonies (printed by order of the House of Commons, March 1853), we read:— “ In forwarding a copy of the report of the Health Officer,* on which the sick of the Dauntless were removed to the military hospital, it is very satisfactory to find that by observing the pre- caution recommended, the disorder was not in a single instance * “ The sanitary measure that I advise, is an immediate removal of the sick to the shore, taking proper precautions for an efficient segrega- tion of them.”
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