Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Some more of our men are complaining of their gums. Luckily for my purpose, most of the men – and more especially Fred Lockham of Hull – have been smoking tea-leaves for want of tobacco. This innocent leaf provides an excellent scapegoat, getting the blame for causing sore mouths, and thus diverting the men’s minds from the real nature of their complaint. Anything to keep from the crew the awful fact that scurvy is on board! ‘Tis a disease all sailors have an instinctive dread and horror of. They know how hopeless and how fatal it is, and the intimation of its presence amongst us would sound in their ears like the knell of doom.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

Some more of our men are complaining of their gums. Luckily for my purpose, most of the men – and more especially Fred Lockham – have been smoking tea-leaves for want of tobacco. This innocent leaf provides an excellent “scapegoat,” getting the blame for causing sore mouths, and thus diverting the men’s minds from the real nature of their complaint. Anything to keep from the crew the awful fact that scurvy is on board! ‘Tis a disease all sailors have an instinctive dread and horror of. They know how hopeless and how fatal it is, and the intimation of its presence amongst us would sound in their ears like the knell of doom.

The carpenter drew my attention today to his legs. I found them thickly covered with the spots so characteristic of incipient scurvy. Upon looking at my own legs I find myself similarly affected. So is Bill Reynolds, and, indeed, most of the officers and probably most of the men. I do not want to excite alarm by appearing to attach importance to these little red spots, though I know full well their fatal meaning. I endeavour to laugh and chaff and cheer up the men, and appear cheerful and, like Mark Tapley in Martin Chuzzlewit, jolly under trying circumstances. At the same time, my mind is well-nigh depressed to the uttermost when I reflect upon the probable fate of our poor scurvy-stricken fellows. And I am the doctor of the ship, the one to whom they will look for life and health, but will look, alas! in vain. God help me! What can I do but trust in His mercy and pity and power to save?

284 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Arctic Ocean (9) ·
• Diana (1840 ship) (8) ·
• Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) (4), writer and social critic ·
• Divine providence (4) ·
• 📌Kingston upon Hull (65) ·
• Scurvy (3) ·
• Smoking (4) ·
• Tea (7) ·
• Tobacco (3) ·
• Whaling in the United Kingdom (11) ·
• Whaling (9) ·

All tags.

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