Surgeons at Sea - Royal Navy Medical Officers' journals

[7eat51]

I just found this site, and thought it could be of interest - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/surgeonsatsea/

Here is info from the site:

The ADM 101 series consists of journals and diaries compiled by Royal Navy surgeons and assistant surgeons who served on HM ships, hospitals, naval brigades, shore parties and on emigrant and convict ships in the period 1793 to 1880.

Medical officers serving in the Royal Navy were required to submit detailed records of the health, treatment and survival rates of their charges. This has provided us with journals which exhibit a completeness, consistency and coherence unlikely to exist elsewhere for this period.

As a result of this extensive work the records can be easily searched by the name of the medical officer, the patient, the ship or even by disease or ailment. The cataloguing also revealed some unexpected 'bonus' material contained in the journals. For example, the presence of watercolour illustrations, sketches, hand-drawn maps, charts showing details of the climate, details about the lay-out of the vessels and ideas about ventilation, and details of the countries visited and people encountered.

The journals include a variety of colourful tales of 18th and 19th century ship life, from drunken rum-related incidents, venereal disease, scurvy, shark bites and tarantulas, to lightning strikes, gun fights, mutiny, arrests and court martial - not to mention ship wrecks and even murder.

[Coog]

Nice find. It could come in handy for our project.

[7eat51]

Exactly. Your last PM sent me searching. I was just about to PM you that I found this.

[Пилот]

Sounds very interesting.

[Nightmoss]

Excellent discovery. Just the thing to add some role playing to a series of games or campaigns if one was so inclined.