Pirate Ships In The Golden Age Of Piracy

Pirate ships in the Golden Age of Piracy weren’t very pleasant places to live. It was an exciting life, to be sure, but things weren’t always easy for the sailors. Diseases and injuries were common among the crew. Doctors were scarce and not always well trained, and many pirates died. It is a wonder that so many men chose the pirate life! Life on a pirate ship was greatly influenced by sickness, injuries, and often harmful treatments for both. When pirate problems are mentioned, most people immediately think of scurvy. Scurvy is a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. The symptoms include anemia. weakness, apathy, and of course spongy gums and loosened teeth (Van Rosen). Scurvy was very common on pirate ships, but there were several other …show more content…
They were seen as some of the most valuable loot that pirates could find (Vallar). When a pirate company plundered a town, they would seek out doctors like they sought treasure. They would then give the doctor a chance to sign articles and join the ship, and if he refused they would offer him some off-the-books bribe (“Medicine at Sea”). They also sought out medical books, and if anyone could understand them, he would act as the ship’s doctor. Medicines he might use included mercury, spices and herbs, or sulfur (Vallar). Today, it is known that mercury and some other common medicines back then actually poisoned the patient instead of curing him. If no one had any medical knowledge and there was no medicine chest aboard, an injured or sick pirate was left in God’s …show more content…
However, the medicine or advice a patient received from a doctor didn’t always help them. Mercury and other substances that are now known to be poisonous were seen as good medicines. In fact, the signs thought to mean recovery from many illnesses were actually symptoms of mercury poisoning. The other expected treatment was for a doctor to “bleed” the patient, which only weakened them and made it harder for them to recover. In addition to that, pirate hygiene (or rather, the lack thereof) and contaminated food supply caused many cases of disease, though sailors never considered that to be the problem. Instead, they believed disease was the judgement of God or that it was caused by bad air. Many of them also believed in superstitions, or that something they did gave them bad luck, injuries, or sickness. If pirates had known the true origin of their ailments and the nature of common treatments, many lives could have been