Saving lives and limbs on the high seas: the extraordinary world of early modern ship’s surgeons

Imagine you are at sea facing a violent battle with an enemy ship. The experienced 17th-century surgeon John Moyle asked his reader to do just that. In his printed guide of recommended practice, the reader was compelled to put themselves in the place of a ship’s surgeon in the thick of battle: “You have another wounded Man brought down, having a Musket bullet penetrated into the thick of his Groin, and lodging there, and the great Vessels wounded, and bleeding lamentably.”

For sailors facing injury, accident,…

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