Leaky Bodies: Syphilitic Incontinence on the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition

Were Bodily fluids taboo in Victorian Britain? The answer is more complex than yes or no. In this essay, I demonstrate that the same bodily fluids could be treated differently depending on the space the bodily fluids were located in and the identity of the body from which they emanated. I investigate this topic through the private and public writings of Frederick Jackson (1860–1938), a British polar explorer and author. Jackson travelled across the Russian Arctic by sledge in 1893 and subsequently led the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to the remote Arctic archipelago of Franz Joseph Land between 1894 and 1897.

The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition was tasked with surveying the archipelago. However, not everything went to plan. In the autumn of 1894, the expedition's ship, the Windward, which had brought the expedition to the Arctic, became trapped by sea ice. Meanwhile, the physical and mental health of A. Schlosshauer, the ship's captain, became a source of concern.¹ In his diary, Jackson reported that the captain was "guilty of very dirty ways" and complained of his "impertinent" behaviour (Jackson, 17 and 18 Oct. 1894).

The expedition's surgeon, Reginald Koettlitz, interviewed and examined the captain, who was having "trouble with his water" (Jackson, 19 Oct. 1894). In a letter to Jackson, Koettlitz reported that Schlosshauer was suffering from "incontinence of urine." The captain claimed to have developed incontinence after falling down a hatchway several years earlier and described numerous unsuccessful medical interventions that had attempted to seal his leaky body. However, Koettlitz suggested that while Schlosshauer "says he has not suffered from syphilis, some of his history, his present condition, and appearance, the bridge of his nose having fallen, suggest strongly that he has been infected with that disease." Koettlitz argued that syphilis was probably the true cause of the captain's incontinence. Koettlitz consequently reported to Jackson that the captain was in a "precarious state of health" and "totally unfit to withstand the rigours of the Arctic Climate."

This diagnosis presented a problem. Neither the captain nor the ship could leave the Arctic until the ice broke up the following spring. Jackson considered Koettlitz's letter significant and quoted it verbatim in his personal diary of the expedition (19 Oct. 1894). Below the transcription of the letter in his diary, Jackson reported that, in the past, the captain had "catheters passed to enable him to get rid of his urine" and that he was, consequently, in "a patchy condition for a polar explorer!" (19 Oct. 1894). In private, then, Jackson wrote about the captain's bodily fluids directly.

After the initial discovery of the captain's incontinence, Jackson's diary entries became more euphemistic, complaining about Schlosshauer's general health rather than his specific symptoms. For example, on 18 May 1895, Jackson grumbled that he went to the ship and "found Schlosshauer in bed & the stove red hot & the door closed as usual." Earlier, Jackson infantilized the captain, writing that he "behaves like a big child" in matters relating to his health (2 Nov. 1894). Jackson questioned Schlosshauer's fitness to command the ship, complaining about his "vacillation in the command" (1 Nov. 1894) and "wasteful management" (19 May 1895). Jackson also blamed the captain for an outbreak of scurvy on the ship that killed several crew members, claiming he had failed to give out supplies of lime juice and fresh meat that would have prevented the disease (17, 23 May 1895).

When the ice eventually cleared, Schlosshauer was discharged from the expedition and sent back to London with the Windward. But Schlosshauer's departure was not the end of the matter; Jackson also erased him from his published account of the expedition, A Thousand Days in the Arctic (1899). The extent of the erasure was dramatic: Schlosshauer's name does not even appear in the book. Where mention of Schlosshauer's presence is unavoidable, he is referred to simply as "the captain" (64). The only reference to Schlosshauer's illness is on Christmas day 1894: Jackson writes that he "received a note from the captain saying he feels...