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Palgrave Macmillan

Doctors at Sea

Emigrant Voyages to Colonial Australia

  • Book
  • © 2005

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Authors:
  1. Robin Haines
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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  2. ‘It would be very satisfactory to land them all in good health’: Emigrants and their superintendents at sea

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 1-16

  3. ‘May it be the last of our sorrows’: Disease and death at sea

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 17-33

  4. ‘The obstinately dirty character of the people’: Origins, children, and epidemics at sea

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 34-53

  5. ‘A most efficient body of officers’: Surgeon superintendents and their responsibilities

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 54-80

  6. ‘His many duties and anxieties’: Supervision and discipline at sea

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 81-91

  7. ‘The mother’s milk generally fails them in about six weeks’: Infant and child health

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 92-103

  8. ‘The people suffered greatly in consequence’: Discomfort, weather, and Great Circle sailing

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 104-117

  9. ‘The Dr is supreame over all on board bar the Capton and Officers’: Matrons, constables, and emigrants

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 118-132

  10. ‘Firmness and indulgence, consideration and strictness’: Dr Strutt’s management of families and Irish girls

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 133-146

  11. ‘I held a court in the ward’: Dr Ayre and democracy at sea

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 147-169

  12. ‘The passengers are falling sick every day’: Epidemics and quarantine

    • Robin Haines
    Pages 170-179

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 180-248
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About this book

In this engaging tale of movement from one hemisphere to another, we see doctors at work attending to their often odious and demanding duties at sea, in quarantine, and after arrival. The book shows, in graphic detail, just why a few notorious voyages suffered tragic loss of life in the absence of competent supervision. Its emphasis, however, is on demonstrating the extent to which the professionalism of the majority of surgeon superintendents, even on ships where childhood epidemics raged, led to the extraordinary saving of life on the Australian route in the Victorian era.

Reviews

'Though the focus might seem narrow, this is an illuminating work of history. It contains within it glimpses and echoes of lives long-forgotten that speak across time with great power.' - Sydney Morning Herald

'Robin Haines' story is a microcosm of Victorian hierarchy: class, racial and sectarian feeling on the one hand, and on the other the integrity and generosity displayed by paternalism at its most high-minded.' - The Melbourne Age

'Robin Haines's excellent little study of nineteenth-century emigrant voyages to Australia from Britain cogently captures the perils of such expeditions...the book is rich in revealing anecdotes.' - Christopher Lawrence, Times Literary Supplement

'...I have realized, through reading Robin Haines's excellent study of oceanic voyages, how little I actually know about what happens in that long interval between ports...This is a slim, beautifully-written volume. One hopes that there is yet more to be gained from such carefully detailed studies.' - Maureen Lux, Medical History

About the author

ROBIN HAINES is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Faculty of Social Science, Flinders University, Australia.

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