Health and Medicine in the Nineteenth-Century Navy. (360G-Wellcome-087113_Z_08_Z)

This pilot project aims to determine the whereabouts and content of sources of potential relevance to a study of health and medicine in the nineteenth century Royal Navy. This is an extremely under-researched area. While we are aware of large bodies of rich source material, it has been impossible to evaluate fully its potential. Archives at certain institutions, such as the Naval Museum and Royal Marines Museum at Portsmouth remain to be explored. In due course, our aim is to embark on a la rge research project involving scholars at the University of Oxford and the National Maritime Museum. Ultimately, we envisage two monographs covering different aspects of naval health and medicine: one concentrating on the health of sailors and marines; the other on the impact of naval medical practice and ideas on the development of British medicine. The first part will relate issues of naval health to debates over the 'epidemiological transition'; the emergence of occupational health; the interplay between Evangelicalism, militarism and imperialism; debates over imperial efficiency. The second will concentrate on the vital and un-recognised role that naval MOs had in debates over fevers and many aspects of preventive medicine. Their imperial experience was crucial in this respect.