William Budd and typhoid fever.

Like most previous writers on the distinguished career of William Budd (1811-1880), Dr Moorhead (November 2002, JRSM1) refers to his service with the Seamen's Hospital Society (SHS) on the second of their hospital-ships, HMS Dreadnought, at Greenwich. According to the SHS minutes, his brother George (a physician on the staff of the SHS) recommended William for service with the SHS in a letter to the committee dated 12 August 18402. Although not minuted, this advice was presumably accepted. On 21 October 1840, George again wrote to the SHS committee indicating that as William was ‘some time laid up with Typhus Fever’; he ‘will not [therefore] be able to resume his professional occupation... on board the Dreadnought.’ William thus resigned. Although there was much confusion at that time between typhoid and typhus fever, the SHS physicians already possessed a great deal of knowledge of both3. Therefore William served at most two months and probably no more than one month with the SHS. This was not therefore a significant component in his overall career.