![]() As this article shows, technological advances in the nineteenth century vastly improved the potential for preventive medicine afloat. Yet, if naval hygiene was pioneered under sail, its precepts were most fully realised in the age of steam. The benefits conferred by prioritising sanitary and dietary concerns were particularly shown during James Cook’s exploratory voyages of the 1770s, which boasted such low levels of mortality and morbidity that the value of preventive medicine was established beyond all doubt. In Britain, the recommendations of maritime health authorities such as James Lind (1716–94), Thomas Trotter (1760–1832), and Gilbert Blane (1749–1834) led the Admiralty to institute reforms in every area of naval hygiene: sanitation and ventilation dietary and drink allowances clothing and bedding exercise and rest. The notorious insalubrity of ships remained axiomatic until the manpower requirements of warfare spurred efforts to minimise disease casualties. When the surgeon Norman Chevers half-jokingly suggested in 1846 that the Navy’s motto ought to be ‘cleanse or die!’, his views reflected the widespread belief amongst medical men that sanitary precautions were the key to preserving health afloat.įrom the late eighteenth century onwards, the challenges of instituting the principles of preventive medicine at sea revolved around maintaining a clean, dry, and well-ventilated environment within spaces that were invariably overcrowded, damp, and enclosed. For officers and sailors, the continuous washing and fumigating of the decks may have been a ritual of order and discipline, but for the surgeons serving with them, it was upheld as a life-saving exigency. In the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy enjoyed a particular reputation for cleanliness. It was thus despite shifting ideas about disease and new methods of investigation that naval medicine remained wedded to its sanitarian roots until the close of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, sanitarian ideology prevailed throughout the steam age, and the hygienic reforms enacted throughout the fleet showed some of the same successes that attended the public health movement on land. It proved almost impossible to eradicate sickness at sea, and the enclosed nature of naval vessels showed the limitations – rather than the promise – of attempting to enforce absolute environmental controls. Yet, despite the scientific thrust of Victorian naval medicine, with its emphasis on collecting measurements and collating statistics, consensus about the causes of disease eluded practitioners. Such efforts reflected the sanitarian idealism of naval medicine in this period, inherited from the eighteenth-century pioneers of the discipline. The ironclads of the mid- to late- nineteenth century offered ample opportunities to improve preventive medicine at sea, and surgeons capitalised on new steam technologies to provide cleaner, dryer, and airier surroundings below decks. This article focuses on the consolidation of naval hygiene practices during the Victorian era, a period of profound medical change that coincided with the fleet’s transition from sail to steam. ![]()
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