HYGIEIA'S VISIT TO THE BRITISH FLEet.

What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.

THE goddess worshipped by the Greeks under the name of 'Yea, and by the Romans as Salus, has assuredly been visiting the Navy in the character of Health, within the last century; for no similar period of time ever witnessed so wonderful an amelioration of condition, as hath happened to British seamen almost within the memory of the present generation.

The very serious misfortunes which frequently befel the country from the unhealthiness of maritime life, led to much investigation for bettering the seamen's state, as an object of paramount importance to the welfare of the nation; and the knowledge and benevolence applied have been attended with such results, that we of the present day can with difficulty comprehend the extent of the dreadful disasters which ravaged the fleets of Hosier and of Anson. It is true, that we read, as matters of history, of Vasco de Gama's having considerably more than half his crew destroyed by scurvy in 1497; of Magellan's losses; and Admiral Hawkins's statement in 1593, that it was consistent with his personal knowledge that, in twenty years, 10,000 men had perished under the same disease; but it is comparatively yesterday that Anson lost above four-fifths of his men; and it was only in 1783 that the fleet of Sir Edward Hughes was all but disabled at the most critical moment of our Oriental career. An extract from a statistical summary, lately drawn up for the Admiralty, will at once show the happy effects of Hygieia's visit, in a more striking view than that of any other exact question which we are acquainted with.

By this document it is seen that, in the year 1780, there were admitted 8143 cases of disease into Haslar Hospital at Portsmouth, of which scurvy formed 1457; while, during four years, namely, 1806, 1807, 1808, and 1809, there were admitted into the Naval Hospital at Plymouth 1984 cases of disease, of which two only were scurvy. During nine years of warfare-namely, between 1778 and 1795-the number of men voted by Parliament for the naval service was 745,000; of these 189,730 were sent sick to hospitals; while, during nine consecutive years of warfare, namely, from 1796 to 1806, the number of men voted for the naval service was 1,053,076, of whom there were sent sick only 123,949, a difference mainly owing to the improvement in that brief period in the measures with which the scurvy had been combated. We have said that the scorbutic patients sent to Haslar in 1780 were 1457; it may be added, that the number of cases of that malady admitted into the same hospital was, in 1806, one only, and in 1807, one. From the same returns, the difference may be shown between five years of the American war, and five of the last contest with France; the first column representing the year, the second the number of seamen and marines voted by parliament in each year, and the third the number sent to hospitals.

U. S. MAG., No. 163, JUNE, 1842.

L

It was known and acknowledged through all ages, that sea-air is most wholesome, that it induces longevity, and that many maladies are either completely healed, or at least neutralized by it; insomuch, that Aratæus, Cappador, speaking of the cure of calculous diseases, 1800 years ago, says, "But diet and anointing, and sailing and passing one's life at sea-all these are remedial in diseases of the kidneys." And the presumption that a seafaring life is both a cure and preventive of one of the most painful and distressing maladies by which human life is assailed, has been completely borne out by the active researches of our late excellent friend, Copland Hutchinson, surgeon, R.N. With such a conviction respecting sea-air, it soon became obvious, that most of the putrid and malignant fevers, scurvy, and other deadly evils on shipboard, resulted from the mode of living, the scanty supply of fresh water and deteriorated state of provisions, mephitic vapours, and other palpable causes. Old Sam. Johnson-not at all an over-nice manspoke of a ship, so lately as 1778, in these terms :- "As to the sailor, when you look down from the quarter-deck to the space below, you see the utmost extremity of human misery; such crowding, such filth, such stench!" Horrors of this type appealed for removal, and the call was responded to so properly, that intelligence and forethought occupied the place hitherto held by chance and blind daring. Every proper means of airing, fumigation, and ventilation, were brought forward, the sine gradibus doctors were displaced by men of education, the sick bays were rendered as comfortable and orderly as circumstances admitted, and the sanative quality of provisions so closely attended to, that the ruler of all the members, as Æsop proves the belly to be, was rated of equal importance to the public with the head and the hand; in short, this very important department of the "soul of the ship" was restored to the consideration it must have held in Ben Jonson's time :

Room! room! make room for the bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce, and deviser of jelly,
Prime master of arts, and the giver of wit,
That found out that excellent engine-the spit;
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the halter, the furnace and copper,
The oven and baven, the mawkin and peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel;
He-he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimblet and vice, too, and taught 'em to run.

·

As philosophy must not always be exhibited on a chair of state, to attract the mere gaze of mankind, but should sometimes be represented in her serviceable capacity, we could here enter upon a long story of how the social comforts of life may be augmented by her application, and especially in evolving the latent powers of the galley-art in rendering substances nutritious which, but for domesticated chemistry, would defy the digestive powers of an ostrich. It is an adage of some standing, that Providence provides meat, but that the devil sends cooks. Now, some of the sea-cooks are certainly bad enough, and probably had been worse but for the beautiful law of making them eat the whole of a bad dish; yet why should poor Satan be mixed up with the invective? Witches and others who have supped and revelled with him, have shown cause to pronounce him an able artiste; and the sublimest of our poets makes the crafty tempter offer, as a far greater temptation than the women proposed by Belial,—

A table richly spread, in regal mode,

With dishes pil'd, and meats of noblest sort
And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled,
Gris-amber-steamed; all fish, from sea or shore,
Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fin,—

besides the stately sideboard laden with fruits, the wines, and the music,
which certainly form a contrast to the "crude apple that diverted Eve!"
Health, truly defined, is when the living body is in condition to per-·
form all its functions without impediment or pain.
Good health, more-
over, consists not only in the proper performance of those functions,
mental and corporeal, but also in a tenacity, as it were, of this regularity,
and in an accommodation of the habit to numerous variations of climate,
weather, seasons, diet, and mode of life. It is, therefore, an object of
the utmost importance to exert every known means for the preservation
of so inestimable a state, and certain rules are adopted and enforced
with success; for though individual cases of disease must be regulated
by the juvantia and lædentia, the general details of health may be
supported on broad principles. Thus, in a ship, it should be a constant
study how to disarm the vicissitudes of heat, cold, and humidity, by
ventilation, proper changes of clothing, and keeping the crew in a course
between inactivity and over-exertion; and she should be worked at
night by the watch only, to avoid the unnecessary infliction of broken
rest. Everything that exhilarates the spirits should be promoted, and
as mirth is fortunately contagious, this is no very difficult matter, while
music, dancing, and theatrical entertainments, meet with encouragement.
Captain Basil Hall found that his men were benefitted by the tricks and
mischief of a monkey. This operation of the mind is both remarkable
and decisive. Who has not noticed the animation which the cry of
"land" makes after a long cruise and six-upon-four allowance, among
the most feeble of a ship's company? a contrast to which liveliness is
strongly exhibited on the first filling of a sick bay, and the "nightly
plunging of the frequent corse."

O quantus instat navitis sudor tuis.

Thus the nostalgia, or home-sickness, and the calenture, a fever peculiar to seamen, are mainly owing to morbid recollections, which engender unmitigable dejection; and in the latter, the pinings for shore

life advancing in equal ratio with the disorder, made the sea appear a green meadow, into which many of the phrenzied patients leaped. Calentures, yellow fever, and the scurvy, were the scourge of the West India station; but Dr. Trotter instances the case of the Intrepid, 64, one of Rodney's fleet, which did not lose a man, except from wounds in battle, for the space of two years and a half. "This ship was in a very sickly state when Capt. Molloy took the command of her; but, by the excellent discipline, and attention to the cleanliness of the crew and ship, which he established, health was preserved in a climate reputed to be unwholesome, and that, too, when exposed to the hardships which follow a state of frequent or constant preparation for action." Indeed, in most of the sea ailments, we placed very strong reliance upon moral treatment.

One of the most extensive causes of debility is known to be a constant exposure to a cold and damp atmosphere: yet how many smart officers have persisted in washing the lower and 'tween decks, in weather utterly precluding their drying again! To remedy some of the effects of this evil, and to combat the noisome effluvia of bilge water, and other noxious principles of vitiated air, many ingenious schemes were called forth. The defects of the wind-sail were obvious, in that its working is not constant during calm weather, in warm climates, where elastic air is most required, they are next to useless: they never cause a thorough ventilation, and, moreover, they are improper to be used in the night among sleeping people. Dr. Desaguliers contrived a kind of centrifugal bellows, seven feet in diameter, which, by the labour of one man, could easily be kept in motion at the rate of two revolutions in a single second. This was tried in a room over the House of Commons-then very foul -and, as it was attended with good effects, he concluded that every noisome part of a ship might be purified by it. In 1741, Dr. Mead introduced, through the Royal Society, the plan of one Sutton, who kept a coffee-house in Aldersgate-street, to change the air in a ship's hold by opening flues of communication with the galley-fire,-a contrivance of equal simplicity and excellence. About the same time the amiable Dr. Hales proposed what he termed " ship's lungs" for renewing the air, which were greatly approved of. Capt. Henry Ellis, who had his ship-a slaver-fitted with them at Bristol, thus reported his experiments :

1. I took a wax candle, of eight to the pound, and drew it through a mould, to make it of one thickness from end to end; then weighed it exactly, and lighted it in the ship's hold, where I found it wasted sixty-seven grains in thirty minutes, that place not being ventilated during twenty-four hours; but, after six hours' ventilation, it wasted ninety-four grains and a half in the same time.

2. I carried with me into the hold a plate of silver, well polished, and a lantern and candle, all blinded, except a round of about two inches diameter. I placed the plate at six feet distance from it, and with such obliquity, that the rays from the light should fall on its surface at an angle of 45°. I then fixed a white paper screen, at the same distance from the plate, and under the same angle with the lantern, so that the reflected rays might fall upon it also. This being done, I observed that the reflection from the plate distinctly was but 17′ 30′′ with an unventilated hold, it being turned the colour of tarnished lead; whereas, when the air was replaced by four hours' ventilation, it continued to reflect light and retain its brightness four hours forty-seven minutes.

3. The ship's bell, whose diameter is fourteen inches, I had brought into the hold, when ventilation had been omitted twelve hours. Having hung it under the lower deck, I took out the clapper, and, having suspended it also by thread, which, with its own length, made forty-four inches, the angle which the rim of the bell made, with a line let fall perpendicular from the pin on which the clapper hung, was equal to 34′ 0′′. I then held the clapper at the same angle, on the other side of the line, in order that the strokes at different times might be with the same force, when, letting it go, it struck the bell. In its return I catched it, and, counting the vibrations, I heard them distinctly but three times; whereas, when the hold was well ventilated, it vibrated five times, but its vibrations were not so quick in the latter as in the former case. I took all possible precautions that these experiments might be fairly tried, to prevent deception, but always found them produce the same effects.

Though we do not entirely disregard all theory on this subject, yet, in general, we are of opinion that it merits attention only in proportion as it is founded on practical observation. So largely did the "doctors' advocate the diffusion of the fumes of vinegar and of the mineral acids, that their use was expressly ordered in the Naval Instructions; and as to oxygenated muriatic acid, it was pronounced to be omnipotent. But such means, however beneficial in destroying the floating miasmata, exercise little influence on the causa prædisponens of infection, which we believe to yield more to systematic cleanliness than to any other agent, and without which all the vapourous remedies are but partial. Dr. Lind has recorded that a line-of-battle ship, the Edgar, was cleared of a distemper by the quantity of ammunition fired on board her during an engagement: but there is no one thing connected with the subject of which we are more certain, than that the explosion of gunpowder has little or no effect on putrid air. The hold is the nidus of the evil, and there it can be most easily and effectually attacked, by the wholesome practice of repeatedly letting in water and pumping it out again, thus carrying off all the putrid bilge water and other feculent abominations.

Next to vitiated air the principal evil of maritime life was the limited quantity and poor quality of the fresh water provided,-a grievance which the late happy contrivance of iron tanks has almost extirpated, to say nothing of the labour saved to the working watch, and the unbroken rest now given to the watch below, in not having the nightly task to rowce up a tier or two of empty casks in the middle of the night, as of erst, to get at the water. O the growls and inverted blessings that are no longer extorted from the drowsy! Still, as nautical life, despite every improvement, must always be liable to casualties of every kind, we will here enter upon some of the means which have been essayed, and successfully essayed, to procure potable drink from the briny ocean. But it is not our intention to recal the many modes of filtering and purifying fluids that have obtained, since most of these methods acted upon such impurities only as are diffused through water, and not on those matters which it holds in solution: and as to the application of woodashes, calcined bones, lapis infernalis or salt of tartar, quick lime, powdered chalk, pearl ashes, soap-leys, or any other rule-of-thumb menstruum to putrid water, we can only advise the patient to take his choice, de gustibus, we know, non est disputandam.

So lately as the year 1810, there was a considerable party clamour made in favour of Mr. Archbold's priority of invention in bringing out