258 A few Remarks on the diseases of Seamen. 



Remarks.— Manship was thus admitted on the 10th April, suffering from bilious 

 diarrhoea. On the 11th, his head was congested: on the 15th, there was congestion in 

 the thorax: 19th, the head again became affected, along with febrile symptoms: 

 22nd, the system began to throw out boils, which kept him low and weak. May 9th, 

 symptoms resembling typhus supervened, under which he succumbed on the 15th. 

 There was no effusion within the cranium, though the symptoms during life 

 seemed to indicate it. The firmness of the cerebral substance was, I fancy, what 

 some authors have described, as hardening of the brain after typhus. 



Dysentery. — The worst and most fatal cases of this disease 

 were all admitted from one ship in dock, which had a particu- 

 larly debauched crew. As the incipient stage is usually past 

 before men are sent to hospital, general depletion and the 

 means commonly employed to check the onset of the attack, 

 are frequently inapplicable. Indeed, as dysentery is essenti- 

 ally an inflammation of a mucous not of a serous surface, it 

 may be doubtful whether local be not often as effectual as 

 general depletion. As to the use of calomel, which is so 

 commonly employed at its onset, the general feeling of the 

 profession seems to be against its employment at a later 

 stage*, and indeed it is difficult to conceive what beneficial 

 influence it can exert on an ulcerated surface. 



Accordingly the usual treatment in the Seaman's Hospital 

 is the free exhibition of sugar of lead and opium, and it ap- 

 pears to answer well. As much as from nine to fifteen grains 

 of sugar of lead, combined with small quantities of opium, (one 

 or one-half grain of opium to three of sugar of lead) are given 

 within the twenty-four hours ; and this treatment is continued 

 for several days, along with the free use of leeches and opiate 

 and sugar of lead enemata, with purgatives every other 

 morning, and milk diet. Perhaps in no disease is it more im- 

 portant, that the patient should not remain on board ship, 

 where his diet is sure to be neglected, and in none is attenti- 

 on to it so imperatively demanded. Indeed, such is the value 

 of milk diet, that we can readily believe that the albumen of 

 eggs, of late years confidently brought forward by writers 

 both in France and in Germany as a cure for it, may be a 



* See a practical paper of Dr. Goodeve's in the Transactions of the Medical and 

 Physical Society. 



