Overview
This nineteenth-century, ship’s surgeon’s wooden medicine chest is full of labelled medicines. A paper note on the inside of the lid gives the name of the ship it was used on as Star of the East.
In the nineteenth century, the surgeon on an immigrant ship had to deal with all sorts of ailments, including colds, flu, diarrohea, constipation, and lice. Sometimes there would be outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, smallpox, or whooping cough. He also attended births and deaths.
But his job included much more than looking after the passengers’ physical health. He was also employed to oversee the stores and daily food rations, instigate daily routines to keep the ship clean and orderly, give a sermon on Sundays, organise education for the children, mediate when passengers had disagreements, and much more. He was especially responsible for the large numbers of government-assisted emigrants that were always on board.
As well as medicines and ointments, the surgeon, or ‘surgeon superintendent’ as he was sometimes called, dispensed what were known as ‘medical comforts’. These included stout, sherry, port, sago, milk, and preserved potatoes. The ‘comforts’ were used to treat all sorts of ailments and were also given as preventative measures.
The ship’s surgeon’s employers provided him with the medicines he needed, but he had to bring his own medical equipment. The New Zealand Company required their surgeons to bring instruments, including lancets, ‘tooth-instruments’, midwifery forceps, and an amputating saw.
The first few days at sea were usually very trying for the surgeon. Passengers had not yet found their sea-legs, and many were violently ill. The surgeon often found himself suffering from sea-sickness too, but he was still expected to look after everyone else.
A skilled surgeon, with an energetic, warm personality, could minimise the sickness on board during the journey and encourage a happy atmosphere. Unfortunately ship’s surgeons were often inexperienced, incompetent, or both. The trouble was that the job did not pay well – nor was the return voyage always guaranteed! Few good surgeons wanted such a job and it was usually only the dregs of the profession that applied. The exceptions were those surgeons who wanted to move to the new colony anyway, and who worked their passage over.
Passengers’ diaries abound with scandalous tales of their ship’s surgeons, an amazing number of whom appear to have been alcoholics. On board the SS Asterope in 1865, Alfred Maskell writes of the doctor, ‘... the most curious specimen of an MD I have ever seen got as drunk as Chloē, & finished up by repeating the old story of Noah, that is to say by lying stretched on the floor of his cabin in ‘puris naturalibus’ exposed to the admiring gaze of the (male) passengers.’ (1)
Seven weeks later he wrote, ‘The general opinion is that the doctor will not live till we get to Wellington. He eats nothing & only turns out of his berth at grog-times.’ (2) Indeed, three weeks after this, the doctor was found dead.
References
(1) Maskell, Alfred Ongle. (1865–68) The Voyage of the Asterope: Aberdeen clipper from London to Wellington. Manuscript: MS–1560. Alexander Turnbull Library: National Library of New Zealand. Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. p 6: 12 June 1865.
(2) Maskell. (1865–68). p 36: 2 August 1865.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).