Diseases of Seamen by Stephen Maturin

A Ship of the Line off Plymouth thanks to Art UK 

Title: Diseases of Seamen 

Author: Stephen Maturin

Publisher: Zachariah Jackson in Dublin, for W Gilbert 

Source book: Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O’Brian

I really tried hard to read the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian. Honestly. 

I have read and loved the mostly Napoleonic Wars era of naval fiction like the Bolitho books by Alexander Kent, the Ramage books by Dudley Pope, and of course the Hornblower books by CS Forrester. I absolutely adored Swallows and Amazons as a child. So I was sure I would enjoy the Aubrey books. And I didn’t. I just couldn’t battle my way into the books. Pfff.

I had a sort of a feeling that Stephen Maturin; physician, naturalist and spy, must have written a fictional book at some stage in the 20 odd Aubrey/Maturin book series. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t written more than one. But I can only find one book that anyone has listed online.

Obviously Maturin, as the ship’s surgeon, would have been in a unique position to study the Diseases of Seamen. One thinks immediately of scurvy, but there must be a lot of nasty skin conditions associated with repeated exposure to salt water, and limited opportunities to get your clothes properly dry. Plus, I imagine, lots of skin cancers if the men took their shirts off in the tropics.

Wait, wait, is there another book by Stephen Maturin, called Tar Water Reconsidered? Really? What can that mean? I am going to refer us all to Wikipedia. Apparently this book features in Post Captain. And, let me think… doesn’t this book remind me of a false or jib book owned by Charles Dickens? Scroll down the first list and find Captain Parry’s Virtues of Coal Tar. Surely there must be a link.

A Ship of the Line Going Up the Solent thanks to Art UK