असे म्हटले जाते की ब्रिटन ने एकेकाळी जगावर प्रभुत्व गाजवले त्यांच्या नौदला मुळे ...
अलीकडे (एप्रिल २०२३) Stephen R. Bown यांचे 'Scurvy: how a surgeon, a mariner, and a gentleman solved the greatest medical mystery of the age of sail' पुस्तक चाळत आहे आणि त्यातील माहिती अद्भुत आहे!
मी माझ्या चौथी मध्ये १९६८-६९ साली स्कर्व्ही बद्दल पहिल्यांदा वाचले आणि तो शब्द आणि त्या रोगाचे कारण डोक्यात जाऊन अडकले. त्यामुळे मी ह्या पुस्तकाकडे आकर्षित झालो.
हा एक परिच्छेद पहा, ब्रिटनच्या १८व्या शतकातील बलाढ्य नौदला बद्दल:
"...The Royal Navy needed at least double the number of
able-bodied seamen who would willingly serve. In eighteenth-century Britain men
frequently disappeared from seaport towns and villages. Wandering alone they
were clubbed, dragged aboard ships in port, and “recruited” into the navy. Many
were never seen by their families again...."... सोबतचे चित्र नौदल भरतीचे आहे!
पुढे जाऊ.
"...Mariners in the eighteenth century suffered from a bewildering array of ailments, diseases, and dietary deficiencies, such that it was next to impossible for surgeons or physicians to accurately separate the symptoms of one from those of another. Niacin deficiency caused lunacy and convulsions, thiamin deficiency caused beriberi, and vitamin-A deficiency caused night blindness. Syphilis, malaria, rickets, smallpox, tuberculosis, yellow fever, venereal diseases, dysentery, and food poisoning were constant companions. Typhus, or typhoid fever, was common on every ship. Spread by infected lice in the frequently shared and rarely cleaned bedding, typhus was so prevalent in the navy that it was known as “ship’s fever” or “gaol fever.” Man-of-war and merchantman, both were a cozy den for disease.
Life shipboard was not conducive to curing or avoiding any of these varied ailments, and indeed was an ideal environment for spreading them. The sailor’s wooden world was infested with refuse, trash, rotting flesh, urine, and vomit. The mariners were either crammed into their quarters like sardines in a box or slept, occasionally in good weather, sprawled like hounds on the deck. The holds were crammed with vermin, festering and spoiled provisions, and in some cases rotting corpses. On English and Dutch ships, the primarily Protestant dead sailors were wrapped in their hammocks and pitched overboard—with proper ceremony, naturally. But on the ships from Catholic countries such as France and Spain, the decaying bodies were stowed in the gravel of the hold, mouldering for perhaps months until the ships returned to home port and the dead could be buried in their native soil....
... Sanitary conditions aboard ships, and particularly the warships of national navies, were as bad as or worse than the filthiest slums then in London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Seville. The cramped, stifling, congested forecastle, where the crew slept, was dark and dingy. The air was clouded with noxious bilge gasses and congested with the sweet, cloying reek of rot and sweat. Sailors slept in dirty bedding and wore the same vermin-infested rags for months on end.... "
फ्रेंच आणि स्पेन च्या नौदलात वारलेले नौसैनिक कित्येक महिने तसेच गुंडाळून होल्ड मध्ये ठेवले जात...
अजून पुस्तकाचे पहिले प्रकरण सुद्धा संपले नाहीये....