Abstract
This article focuses on the consolidation of naval hygiene practices during the Victorian era, a period of profound medical change that coincided with the fleet’s transition from sail to steam. The ironclads of the mid- to late- nineteenth century offered ample opportunities to improve preventive medicine at sea, and surgeons capitalised on new steam technologies to provide cleaner, dryer, and airier surroundings below decks. Such efforts reflected the sanitarian idealism of naval medicine in this period, inherited from the eighteenth-century pioneers of the discipline. Yet, despite the scientific thrust of Victorian naval medicine, with its emphasis on collecting measurements and collating statistics, consensus about the causes of disease eluded practitioners. It proved almost impossible to eradicate sickness at sea, and the enclosed nature of naval vessels showed the limitations – rather than the promise – of attempting to enforce absolute environmental controls. Nonetheless, sanitarian ideology prevailed throughout the steam age, and the hygienic reforms enacted throughout the fleet showed some of the same successes that attended the public health movement on land. It was thus despite shifting ideas about disease and new methods of investigation that naval medicine remained wedded to its sanitarian roots until the close of the nineteenth century.
Highlights
This article focuses on the consolidation of naval hygiene practices during the Victorian era, a period of profound medical change that coincided with the fleet’s transition from sail to steam
If naval hygiene was pioneered under sail, its precepts were most fully realised in the age of steam
If naval medicine in the nineteenth century was characterised by eclecticism, with surgeons facing a wide variety of ailments depending on the makeup and location of their vessels, a belief in hygienic principles united them
Summary
1846 that the Navy’s motto ought to be ‘cleanse or die!’, his views reflected the widespread belief amongst medical men that sanitary precautions were the key to preserving health afloat.[1]. While the emphasis placed on hygiene may not have entirely eradicated sickness, the Admiralty certainly used the conversion to steam to improve sanitary conditions Their efforts raised levels of health and comfort in the service, and produced a decline in casualties during the second half of the nineteenth century.[3] In this respect, the naval example anticipated advances made in the civilian sphere, where sanitary measures succeeded in raising the standard of living and limiting the spread of diseases whose origin remained a subject of debate.[4] Yet, the parallels are not exact. This article examines how the ‘artificial’ living conditions aboard naval steamships inspired health reforms in the Victorian era, showing how beholden the sea service was to prevailing medical orthodoxy
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