It wasn’t so much rum, sodomy and the lash the men had to fear in the navy 200 years ago, as the ship’s surgeon heading towards them with a reassuring smile, a saw in one hand and a poison bottle in the other.
Brandy enemas, a strychnine injection, a sulphuric acid gargle, ammonia rubbed on the lips, and three and a half pints of blood taken from a man with pneumonia are all recorded as attempted cures in a century of gruesome and fascinating journals of Royal Navy ship surgeons revealed at the National Archives: all failed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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