MEDICAL DISEASE IN THE MERCHANT NAVIES OF THE WORLD IN THE DAYS OF SAIL: THE SEAMEN'S HOSPITAL SOCIETY'S EXPERIENCE

In a previous communication I gave details of admissions to the Seamen’s Hospital Society (SHS)’s institutions in the latter years of the nineteenth century.1 What, though, were the medical diseases that afflicted patients in the early days of the charity, which had been founded in 1821? Information on disease in the merchant navy in the days of sail is limited. Sir Andrew Halliday,2 Dr D. MacKinnon and Dr C. J. Roberts became physicians to the SHS in 1821. All were thanked for their services in the first annual report (1822), while only the last two were referred to in the reports for 1823–8. George Roupell (Fig. 1),3 their successor and visiting physician, was the first to make annual reports of cases placed under his care on HMS Grampus (which was succeeded by HMS Dreadnought on 31 October 1831) in 1829–30, 1830–1 and 1831–2. By the time he