Some list members may be interested in the health conditions their ancestors met on board ship. This interesting outline of some aspects of Hygiene on the ships that sailed between Europe and America in the 18th and 19th centuries is Cross posted from an Allan Chapman lecture notice on H-WAR below. The entire lecture should be included in lecture archives at Gresham College website at: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/events.asp?PageId=4 Enter the name Allan Chapman as the speaker. The lecture will be on March 13 so do not look for it until after that.. Find out from the lecture transcript if he covers the period that your own ancestor travelled. Although the lecture may emphasize the Royal Navy ships, I believe it is safe to assume that merchant ships faced the same problems. It is possible that the modern innovations described for the Royal Navy in 1860 did not apply to merchant ships that early....the merchant marine and passengers probably had to put up with outdated facilities much longer. "In Health on the Ocean Waves: The Sea Doctor afloat and in port, which he will deliver at Gresham College on Monday 13 March at 1pm, as part of a series of lectures reflecting the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, Professor Chapman will describe the problems of inter-continental disease transmission due to sea travel. He will point out that it was the development of scurvy among sailors in the 18th Century which led to the first properly-conducted clinical trial in the history of medicine, when Dr James Lind, Surgeon on the H.M.S. Salisbury in May 1747 selected 12 scurvy cases for a scientific experiment. He will go on to reveal that infectious disease was only one of the issues affecting seafarers during that period; accidents on board ships were also common and led to the very first formal study of health and safety in the workplace. Professor Chapman will also illustrate that as living conditions improved, so did health. He will describe how early ships were dirty and congested and sailors indulged in practices such as washing their clothes in urine because it was known to dissolve grease. This had all began to change by the 19th Century, and what had once been luxuries in the Wardroom of H.M.S. Victory, had become standard items of health and hygiene to the sailors on the gun decks of H.M.S. Warrior after 1860. Warrior, when she was launched in 1860, even had hot baths for the off-duty stokers to scrub down, and a ship's laundry, with hand-turned washing machines, and drying areas by the hot funnel shafts. Health and hygiene provision had changed beyond recognition in the Royal Navy in 70 years" I once read a book I found in the Juvenile books section of our library that was about a family's crossing about 1895. The book described the conditions below decks as very crowded and unsanitary. There was also mention that there were regulations that the area had to be "disinfected" regularly during a voyage. The writer reported that on the last day at sea when they were a little distance from port the crew finally came with disinfectants to scrub down their area for the first time so that it would appear they were following regulations when they reached port. Karen