Political medicine : being the substance of a discourse lately delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, on medicine, considered in its relations to government and legislation / by H. Maunsell.

  • Maunsell, Henry, 1806-1879.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Political medicine : being the substance of a discourse lately delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, on medicine, considered in its relations to government and legislation / by H. Maunsell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and six fore-mast men, capable of working.” The fate of this entire squadron is, indeed, a melancholy exam- ple of the perils of the sea-service during the last century. The united crews of the five men-of-war and the sloop composing it, amounted, in September, 1740, when it sailed from England, to 1980 men; of the ships, two, the Severn and Pearl, put back, and the Wager was lost; if we deduct the crews of these three vessels, amounting to 710, we have a balance of 1270 men to be accounted for. In April, 1743, that is, in two years and seven mouths, the consolidated remnant, mustered on board the Centurion, only amounted to 204 individuals; the great majority of the remainder having fallen victims to disease. Such was, but a few years since, the condition, as to health, of the right arm of England. Let us see how it is now changed. The work was fairly commenced in 1776, when the Royal Society awarded the Copley medal, for what Sir John Pringle touchingly describes as “ A concise, an artless, and an incontested relation of the means' by which, under the Divine favour. Captain Cook, with a company of 118 men, performed a voyage of three years and eighteen days, through- out all the climates, from 52° north to 71° south, with the loss of only one man by sickness.” Since then, we have vessels of all kinds and sizes constantly tra- versing every quarter of the globe, and enduring severe hardships, yet exhibiting a smaller mortality than proportionate communities on land. If evidence of this fact be required, we have only to turn to the narratives of the various Polar expeditions ; in Sir