Folios 5-6: Thomas Hall, aged 14,Convict; disease or hurt, hypertrophia, or organic...

ADM 101/68/10/3

1833-1834

Folios 5-6: Thomas Hall, aged 14,Convict; disease or hurt, hypertrophia, or organic disease of the heart. Put on sick list, 13 October 1833, at sea. Died, 23 November 1833. Described as a spare habit little mulatto boy born at Philadelphia. He had been treated for this disease on the Euryalus convict hulk at Chatham for several months. His respiration became more impeded and the slightest exercise caused a sense of suffocation. At the time of his death the ship was in the variable region between the limits of the two trade winds, the hatches were closed against the heavy rain and the crowded state of the vessel made it almost insufferable to remain below. On post mortem examination, the lungs were found to be in a natural state, the pericardium distended by about 10 ounces of fluid, the left ventricle and auricle considerably dilated and the right ventricle thinner and softer than usual.

Folio 7: Abel Downing, aged 21, Soldier; disease or hurt, rheumatismus. Put on sick list, 19 October 1833, at sea. Discharged, 11 November 1833.Had symptoms a couple of days earlier but did not report them, the surgeon attributes them to his getting very wet while standing sentinel over the convicts. 20 ounces of blood were taken from his arm on 19 October, to induce syncope, and a further 15 the following day.

Folio 8: William Howard, aged 46, Convict; disease or hurt, synoche. Put on sick list, 24 October 1833, at sea. Discharged, 5 November 1833. He had been ailing for several days when he was attacked with shivering succeeded by violent heat of the skin, pain of the back and head, great giddiness and prostration of strength. The surgeon attributed his illness to the sultry and wet weather they had for some time in the variables between the north east and south east trade winds. There had been an unusually heavy fall of rain and a disposition to febrile complaints had been prevalent since entering the region. John Hutchinson and John Grover, convicts, both suffered a similar attack, which yielded to similar treatment.

Folio 9: John Ratcliff, aged 27, Convict; disease or hurt, enteritis. Put on sick list, 5 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 16 November 1833. He was rather of a spare habit and was attacked in the night with acute pain in the abdomen. His treatment includes a warm bath and enema with Read's Patent Syringe, a large volume of liquid with sulphate of magnesium was thrown up by Read's Syringe which gave him great pain for a while.

Folio 10: Simon Hand, aged 28, Soldier; disease or hurt, syphilis. Put on sick list, 5 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 14 December 1833. He had been treated as a rheumatic case, having been exposed to the weather and hard service before embarkation and being seized with rheumatic pains about 3 weeks earlier, but was not entered on the sick list. He confessed that he had led a dissipated life previous to his enlisting in the army and had been several times under medical care with syphilitic chancres and had taken at various times great quantities of mercury. He was found to have hard, painful tumours on his forehead, legs and arms and the rheumatism was found to be of a syphilitic nature and he was treated with mercury.

Folio 11: John Guest, aged 56, Convicts; disease or hurt, pneumonia. Put on sick list, 19 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 29 November 1833. Felt unwell the previous day but did not apply to the surgeon until the next morning when he complained of great difficulty in breathing, a sense of confinement or stricture in the chest and a deep full pain in the lungs. The number of respirations exceeded twenty in a minute. His tongue was furred, resembling pneumonia typhaides. Attributed to the sudden fall in the mercury in the thermometer from 82 to 50 while bad weather kept all the prisoners below.

Folios 12-13: John Hodgkin, aged 28, Convict; disease or hurt, dysenteria scorbutica. Put on sick list, 18 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 5 December 1833. 'This man (like many others of his fellow prisoners) from deficiency of clothing, peculiar sort of diet, and the vicissitudes of climate, together with the recorded state of vessel is sufficient to account for the frequent cases of dysentery which generally occur on quitting the equatorial region and gaining high Southern latitudes. These men are also more prone to disease than even sailors or soldiers from the former profligate mode of life they have led and the depression of mind resulting from the degradation of their sentences'.

Folios 13-14: Mark Foster, aged 29, Convict; disease or hurt, scorbutus. Put on sick list, 24 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 8 December 1833, but medicine continued. Had been purged for some days, griped much and had scurvy in his gums, hands and legs. Given lime juice and nitrate of potass and put on a diet of preserved soups, bonito, rice and sago.

Folio 15: John Hodgkin, aged 28, Convict; disease or hurt, apoplexia. Put on sick list, 5 December 1833, at sea. Continued on the list the remainder of the passage. Of a full habit, large head, prominent eyes, short neck, he was attacked suddenly while eating dinner in the prison. Twenty six ounces of blood were taken from his jugular vein as soon as he became conscious.

Folio 16: Benjamin Marsden, aged 30, Convict; disease or hurt, pneumonia. Put on sick list, 25 November 1833, at sea. Discharged, 28 December 1833.

Folio 17: William Kermode, aged 17, Convict; disease or hurt, cynanche tonsillaris. Put on sick list, 18 December 1833, at sea. Discharged, 26 December 1833. Had been exposed to a great deal of wet by the leakage of the upper deck, at this period the prison often being ankle deep in water from heavy seas.

Folios 18-19: Bartholomew Pickard, aged 17, Convict; disease or hurt, phthisis pulmonalis. Put on sick list, 28 September 1833, at sea. Died, 28 December 1833. A 'young convict transported for life for sheep stealing', he was apparently well, though despondent, when he embarked but the surgeon later discovered he had suffered a dry cough, wasting of the body and despondency before embarking on board the hulk. The surgeon attributed his illness to the severity of the sentence holding out no hope of his revisiting his native land but thought there was also a hereditary predisposition; a strumous tendency, with lax fibres, slender frame and soft weak pulse.

Folios 19-20: Thomas Copely, aged 50, Convict; disease or hurt, dysenteria scorbutica. Put on sick list, 18 December 1833, at sea. Discharged, to the colonial hospital.

Folios 21-22: William Chandler, aged 23, Convict; disease or hurt, scorbutus. Put on sick list, 26 December 1833, at sea. Remained on the sick list until arrival at Hobart Town when the fresh diet made him look a different being before he disembarked. Described as a gilt and plated button tool maker brought up at Birmingham and who has had his right leg removed above the knee in consequence of having had white swelling in that joint.

Public Record(s)

Open Document, Open Description