ittle advancement was made in the nautical part
of medicine!

[* This squadron under the command of LANCASTER (who was called the
General) set out in the year 1601. See Purchas's Pilgr. vol. i. p. 147,
et seq.]

[** Idem, vol. iv. p. 1373, et seq.]

But passing from these old dates to one within the remembrance of many
here present, when it might have been expeded that whatever tended to
aggrandize the naval power of Britain, and to extend her commerce, would
have received the highest improvement; yet we shall find, that even at
this late period few measures had been taken to preserve the health of
seamen, more than had been known to our uninstructed ancestors. Of this
assertion the victorious, but mournful, expedition of Commodore Anson,
affords too convincing a proof. It is well known that soon after passing
the Streights of Le Maire, the scurvy began to appear in his squadron;
that by the time the Centurion had advanced but a little way into the
South Sea, forty-seven had died of it in his ship; and that there were
few on board who had not, in some degree, been afflicted with the
distemper, though they had not been then eight months from England. That
in the ninth month, when standing for the island of Juan Fernandez, the
Centurion lost double that number; and that the mortality went on at so
great a rate (I still speak of the Commodore's ship) that before they
arrived there she had buried two hundred; and at last could muster no
more than six of the the common men in a watch capable of doing duty.
This was the condition of one of the three ships which reached that
island; the other two suffered in proportion.

Nor did the tragedy end here for after a few months respite the same
fatal sickness broke out afresh, and made such havock, that before the
Centurion (which now contained the whole surviving crew of the three
ships) had got to the island of Tinian, there died sometimes eight or ten
in a day; insomuch that when they had been only two years on their
voyage, they had lost a larger proportion than of four in five of their
original number; and, by the account of the historian, all of them, after
their entering the South Sea, of the scurvy. I say by the account of the
elegant writer of this voyage; for as he neither was in the medical line
himself, nor hath authenticated this part of his narrative by appealing
to the surgeons of the ship or their journals, I should doubt that this
was not strictly the case; but