Disease in the Merchant Navy-A History of the Seamen's Hospital Society

Contents: Part I: Beginnings (1817-1821). Social conditions and disease prevention in early nineteenth century Britain. Britain`s major maritime organisations, shipyards, and London`s docks. Conditions of service in the mercantile organisations. Diseases afflicting sailors before 1821. The SHS`s precursor: early meetings aimed at London`s homeless: `Most of the destitutes seem to be sailors`. `This laudable institution`: the permanent society is launched in 1821. Part II: The days of the hospital-ships (1821-1870). John Lydekker (1778-1832): a benefaction leading to the Act of Incorporation, and other fund-raising initiatives. The hospital-ships. Conditions of service on the hospital-ships. Fundraising in the days of the ships. Diseases on the hospital-ships. Administrators, physicians and surgeons who served during the ship era. Part III: The SHS in `full swing` (1870-1939). Transfer of facilities to the infirmary of the Royal Hospital, Greenwich - in 1870. Expansion of facilities - at the Dreadnought, and further afield. The society`s expanding staff - 1870-1914. Diseases encountered by the Society 1870-1914. Nursing and nurse-training at the Dreadnought and AHD: establishment of a school on Nightingale lines. Genesis of the first school for tropical diseases - at the ADH. The London School of Clinical Medicine (1906-14), and structural changes to the Dreadnought Hospital. Part IV: (1914-2006) Two world wars, introduction of the National Health Service, and insidious decline of the society. The Great War (1914-18); the inter-war years; and several new facilities. Staffing during the Great War and inter-war years. The Second World War (1939-45): introduction of the National Health Service (1948); and decline in the Society`s activities. Disease(s) at the society`s hospitals in the latter years of the twentieth century. The society`s staff in recent times. The society (and its tropical medicine component) in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.