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Updated: May 13, 2025
Some time between 1820 and 1830, there lived in North Shields a respectable old woman, and her son, who was trying to struggle into sufficient knowledge of medicine, to go out as ship-surgeon in a Baltic vessel, and perhaps in this manner to earn money enough to spend a session in Edinburgh. He was furthered in all his plans by the late benevolent Dr. G , of that town. Dr.
Or I might tell you how Dr. , the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race, and how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near that he could almost lay his hand upon it.
Those around him were kind enough to him in their fashion, and attended to his bodily requirements; but they had no notion of listening to any revelations of unhappiness, if Philip had been the man to make confidences of that kind. As it was, he lay very still in his berth, seldom asking for anything, and always saying he was better, when the ship-surgeon came round with his daily inquiries.
When he left me I went to my cabin and prepared for dinner, laughing as I did so at his keen, uncompromising criticism, which I knew was correct enough; for of all official posts that of a ship-surgeon is least calculated to make a man take a pride in existence. At its best, it is assisting in the movement of a panorama; at its worst, worse than a vegetation.
Edward Thompson, who had been a ship-surgeon, being examined as to the probability of a North-west Passage, said, "He had the greatest reason to believe there is one, from the winds, tides, and black whales; and he thinks the place to be at Chesterfield's inlet; that the reason of their coming back was they met the other boat which had been five leagues further, and the crew told them the water was much fresher and shallower there; but where he was the water was fifty fathoms deep, and the tide very strong; the ebb six hours and the flood two, to the best of his remembrance; that it is not common for the tide to flow only two hours; but he imagines it to be obstructed by another tide from the westward; that the rapidity of the tide upwards was so great, that the spray of the water flew over the bow of the schooner, and was so salt that it candied on men's shoes, but that the tide did not run in so rapid a manner the other way."
This novel is ironical, a sort of prose mock-heroic, and is one of the strongest, though certainly the least pleasing, of Fielding's writings. Tobias Smollett was an inferior Fielding with a difference. He was a Scotch ship-surgeon, and had spent some time in the West Indies.
A ship-surgeon utterly stranded can hardly be a very merry soul, and the day before yesterday I was strolling rather disconsolately about the docks, when I saw a stunning yacht come in. She was a sight to feast one's eyes on, and until the last moment was under a cloud of sail while her funnel belched black smoke.
Those around him were kind enough to him in their fashion, and attended to his bodily requirements; but they had no notion of listening to any revelations of unhappiness, if Philip had been the man to make confidences of that kind. As it was, he lay very still in his berth, seldom asking for anything, and always saying he was better, when the ship-surgeon came round with his daily inquiries.
Hungerford's solicitude for myself, however, was misplaced, because this one voyage would end my career as ship-surgeon, and, besides, I had not vegetated, but had been interested in everything that had occurred, humdrum as it was.
Bush reported to Sir Astley Cooper the history of a man who, as he supposed, received a wound in the back by canister shot while serving on a Tartar privateer in 1779. There was no ship-surgeon on board, and in about a month the wound healed without surgical assistance. The man suffered little inconvenience and performed his duties as a seaman, and was impressed into the Royal Navy.
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