Medicine under Sail (review)

Zachary Friedenberg is an orthopedic surgeon and professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. During World War II he participated in three invasions and served in field hospitals in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. His interest in medicine and maritime history led to his writing this book, which aims to give nonmedical readers insight into the health problems associated with seafaring life and with the efforts of medical officers to treat sickness and injury. Pertinent material is drawn from ancient history to the early twentieth century, but is mainly focused on British experiences in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The final chapter examines the American dimensions of the story from the Revolution to the end of the War of 1812. Readers will learn about scurvy, beriberi, typhus, and tropical fevers, about diseases associated with shipwreck, impressment, and the slave trade. Based almost entirely on published sources read mainly by physicians, surgeons, and medical historians, Friedenberg's book provides an interesting, brief introduction to the problems of medicine at sea and the pioneering practitioners.

Readers of Technology and Culture should know that only one manuscript source is cited and only two unpublished papers, one of which was delivered at a conference in 2000. With regard to published material, Friedenberg has cited nothing more recent than 1994, and thus he has overlooked titles in naval and medical history that would have enlarged the context and directed readers to different viewpoints. Three illustrations of medical scenes in the U.S. Navy date from about the mid-1840s. An editor at the Naval Institute Press should have caught factual errors and supplied missing first names and correct page references, but these problems will not be of major concern to the reader with a general interest in the subject matter.