Abstract
Ship owner John Lydekker wrote a will just before he died in 1832, leaving the bulk of his estate to the Seamen's Hospital Society (SHS). Within two years, Lydekker's bequest totalled some £55,000. SHS was organized in 1821 to provide ‘a permanent floating hospital’ to aid sailors; the gift made it a wealthy charity, after a decade of barely getting by. Lydekker merits an entire chapter in Gordon Cook's history of the society.
The first hospital ship, HMS Grampus served from 1821 to 1831; HMS Dreadnought replaced Grampus and continued and expanded the work from 1831 to 1857. Report of a visit by Charles Dickens to Dreadnought in 1851 commended the ship and its work. By 1864, however, the ship's Surgeon cited problems that led him to compare Dreadnought to the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. In 1870 Dreadnought patients moved to the old Navy Infirmary at Greenwich (renamed Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital).
Expansion after the move to Greenwich included the addition of other land-based dispensaries. The London School of Tropical Medicine was founded in 1899 in the Dreadnought's branch at Albert Dock Hospital (ADH). The third floating hospital, HMS Caledonia (renamed Dreadnought), functioned from 1857 until removal of its last patients to ADH in 1890. Sixteen years later the London School of Clinical Medicine opened in Greenwich at the Dreadnought Hospital.
The author states that much of SHS's early work was directed at venereal disease and tuberculosis, but he considers its greatest achievement ‘the elimination of scurvy from the merchant navy’. The Merchant Shipping Amendment Act of 1867 mandated provision of lime juice on long voyages, plus vegetables and fresh water. From that time scurvy cases dropped and by 1890 the number of cases was minimal. SHS issued advice on prevention of scurvy before 1850 and emphasized the need for enforcement of the Amendment Act.
James Lind reported that in the mid-19th century ‘fevers, scurvy, consumptions, rheumatisms and fluxes’ were the most common ailments seen. As years passed, longer lists of diseases treated included typhus, yellow fever, malaria, venereal disease, dysentery, tuberculosis, scabies, alcoholism and others.
After the advent of the National Health Service in 1948, the importance of SHS declined. It was fragmented by the handing over of its hospitals to the Minister of Health and resulted in ‘a cessation of the core functions of the SHS’ according to Cook. (The charity still exists, offering grants to both individuals and organizations that support SHS goals, as well as funding The Dreadnought Medical Service.) 1
This volume is a good reference work for those who seek detailed information regarding both SHS and diseases in the merchant navy. One might argue that The SHS should be the title, rather than the subtitle of the book since long lists of medical and non-medical staffs appear along with numerous mini-biographies. On the other hand, SHS's main concentration was on disease in the merchant navy. The history abounds with photos, diagrams, tables and lists interspersed throughout.