on the crew of His Majesty’s Ship Triumph, & c . 405 
fate, though the food of the latter was kept in a bottle closely 
corked up. 
The Surgeon ( Mr. Plowman ) informed me, in conversa- 
tion, that he had seen mice come into the ward-room, leap 
up to some height, and fall dead on the deck. 
The Triumph, previous to this event, had suffered con- 
siderably, by having a number of her men attacked with 
malignant ulcer, which at one time prevailed to a considerable 
extent in our ships, both at home and abroad ; and in many 
of the men who had so suffered, the ulcers, which had long 
been completely healed, without even an erasure of the skin, 
broke out again, and soon put on a gangrenous appearance. 
The vapour was very deleterious to those having any ten- 
dency to pulmonic affections : three men died of pthisis pul- 
monalis, who had never complained, or been in the list before 
they were saturated with the mercury ; and one man who 
had suffered from pneumonia, but was perfectly cured, and 
another who had not had any pulmonic complaint before, 
were left behind at Gibraltar, labouring under confirmed 
pthisis. Two only out of so large a number affected died 
from ptyalism, gangrene having taken place in their cheeks 
and tongue : they had previously lost all their teeth. In the 
case of a woman, who was confined to bed in the cockpit 
with a fractured limb, not only were all the teeth lost, but 
many exfoliations also took place from the upper and lower 
jaws. 
The mercury showed its effects upon the ship herself, by 
the decks being covered with a black powder ; but quick- 
silver was not discovered at any time in this powder in a 
native or globular state, though the brass cocks of the boilers, 
