The majority of pirates were honest sailors who were either forced to become pirates when their ship was conquered or who willingly did so to escape the horrible conditions on their own ship. The British navy commonly forced men into sailor jobs, and seventy percent of those coerced died within two years.1 Being captured by a pirate ship offered a slightly better alternative.
When pirates captured a ship, they would ask the sailors whether they had been fairly treated by their captain and commanding officers. If they hadn’t, the offending parties would be killed or tortured. “This was actually a common practice among some pirates, some of whom used more elaborate forms of punishment, like making the torturers run in circles for ten minutes while the men stuck forks, knives and compasses into their butts.”2
While pressing sailors to join their crew, pirates were particularly on the lookout for carpenters. Carpenters could construct furniture and masts that were needed as well as tend to repairs on the wooden ships. As an added bonus, if the ship lacked a surgeon, the carpenter could do the work, as both professions shared the same tools. “When William Phillips injured his leg, Captain John Phillips allowed John Rose Archer to tend the man. Archer had some skill with a saw, but cauterization was beyond his understanding. The red-hot axe he used to burn the stump destroyed too much and William was left with even worse wounds than before.”3
The ship’s Articles of Agreement, a list of rules reached by consensus with all of the pirates, included a form of medical insurance. Injured pirates would be compensated for the loss of a limb or of an eye, recompense that would be taken from captured booty before it was divided among the crew.
While pirate booty did sometimes consist of coins and gold to be spent on prostitutes and parties at ports of call, more common loot included less glamorous items such as soap, food, candles, and sewing supplies. Medical kits were also extremely valuable. The pirate Blackbeard allegedly demanded a medical kit as ransom for hostages when he blockaded the port of Charleston. “Among the tools and supplies found in medicine chests were knives, razors, ‘Head-Sawes,’ cauterizing irons, forceps, probes and spatulas for drawing out splinters and shot, syringes, grippers for extracting teeth, scissors, ‘Stitching quill and needles,’ splints, sponges, ‘clouts’ (soft rags), cupping glasses, blood porringers, chafing dishes, mortar and pestle, weights and scales, tinderbox, lantern, and plasters.”4 A little more involved than today’s first aid kit!
Sailors shared their ships with rats, cockroaches, lice, and other critters. “Their damp and dark quarters smelled of bilgewater, tar, and unwashed bodies as well as the assorted livestock that provided them with fresh meat.”5 Unsanitary conditions and living in close quarters led to the rampant spread of diseases such as typhus, cholera, yellow fever, and bubonic plague. Lack of fresh fruits and vegetables caused scurvy, the leading cause of death for sailors until fruit juice was accepted as a remedy in the late eighteenth century. A sixteenth century surgeon who suffered from scurvy wrote:
It rotted all my gums, which gave out a black and putrid blood.
My thighs and lower legs were black and gangrenous, and I was
forced to use my knife each day to cut into the flesh in order to
release this black and foul blood. I also used my knife on my gums,
which were livid and growing over my teeth….When I had cut
away this dead flesh and caused much black blood to flow, I rinsed
my mouth and teeth with my urine, rubbing them very hard…. And
the unfortunate thing was that I could not eat, desiring more to
swallow than to chew…. Many of our people died of it every day,
and we saw bodies thrown into the sea constantly, three or four at
a time. For the most part they died without aid given them, expiring
behind some case or chest, their eyes and the soles of their feet
gnawed away by the rats. 6
As consorting with prostitutes was common among pirates, so too was contracting syphilis. There was no cure for the disease, but before penicillin was discovered in the twentieth century, the medicine of choice was mercury. “The more effective treatment… was to administer mercury orally, through a vapor bath, or in the case of pirates, by injecting the medication into the penis with a syringe.”7 Pewter syringes used for this purpose were found at the wreck of Blackbeard’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge. Continued treatment led to mercury poisoning. “When this happened, the pirate lost weight, drooled, had foul breath and blurred vision, and slurred his speech. He also had trouble maintaining his balance. If the treatment for syphilis wasn’t stopped, his kidneys eventually ceased functioning and he died.”8
-- More from the author can be found at www.marianneruane.com
Sources:
Six Absurd Pirate Myths Everyone Believes (Thanks to Movies)
The Seven Most Terrifying Pirates from History
Pirates and Privateers: The Crew of a Pirate Ship
Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea
Pirates and Privateers: Making Your Mark
Pirates and Privateers: Oh To Be a Pirate
1 Six Absurd Pirate Myths Everyone Believes (Thanks to Movies)↩
2 The Seven Most Terrifying Pirates from History↩
3 Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea↩
4 Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea↩
5 Pirates and Privateers: Oh To Be a Pirate↩
6 Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea (From Brown, Stephen R. Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.)↩
7 Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea↩
8 Pirates and Privateers: Medicine at Sea↩
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