Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/101

Rh without his having passed the intermediate steps of service. But a still more honourable requital awaited his labours; for, in consequence of a joint application from all the officers on the West India station to the Admiralty, Dr. Blane was rewarded by a pension from the crown, which was afterwards doubled at the suggestion of the Lords of the Admiralty. Even this, too, was not the full amount of benefit which he owed to the esteem of his fellow-officers; for one of these, a midshipman of Rodney's fleet—but who was no less a person than the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV.—obtained for him the appointment of physician extraordinary to the Prince of Wales, in 1785; he was also, chiefly through the popular influence of Lord Rodney, elected physician to St. Thomas's Hospital. About the same time, also, he was appointed one of the commissioners of sick and wounded sailors. As he was now on shore, and in prosperous circumstances, he sought a permanent and comfortable home by marriage; and, on the 11th July, 1786, was united to Elizabeth, only daughter of Abraham Gardner, merchant. By this lady, who shared with him the honours and comforts of a long life, and whose death preceded his own by only two years, he was the father of six sons and three daughters. Having about the time of his marriage been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, he was appointed, in 1788, to deliver the Croonian lecture of that year, a duty which he performed with signal ability, having chosen "Muscular Motion" for his subject, and illustrated it with great extent of information, as well as much profound and original thinking. The essay was published in 1791, and afterwards republished in his "Select Dissertations," in 1822 and 1834. In 1790, an essay of his on the "Nardus or Spikenard of the Ancients," was also published in the 80th volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Society."

More important, however, than all these appointments that were successively conferred upon Dr. Blane, was that of being placed at the head of the Navy Medical Board, which occurred in 1795. It was here that he had full scope and exercise for his talents, philanthropy, and nautical experience as a physician. In proportion as the empire of Britain was extended, the number and length of voyages were increased, so that the draught upon our island population for the royal and merchant service was every year becoming greater. But a still more serious danger than any that arose from storm or battle, and more wasteful in its silent effects, was that which originated in scurvy, the ocean-pestilence, from which there had hitherto been no protection, except at the expense of a long delay by recruiting on a friendly shore. The causes of this disease were the cold and unhealthy atmosphere on ship-board, owing to defective ship-building, the sand used for ballast, the unwholesome miasma of the bilge-water, and the imperfect means of washing and ventilating the vessel. But these were trivial compared with the diet of our sailors, which, on long voyages, consisted merely of salted meat and biscuit. The defective nourishment and excessive stimulus of this kind of food made the scurvy still prevalent in our fleets, notwithstanding the improvements by which the other causes were counteracted; and the point and limit seemed to have been already attained, beyond which the British flag could be carried no farther. "The cure seems impossible by any remedy, or by any management that can be employed," says the historian of Anson's voyage despairingly, when he describes the condition of the commodore's crew on his arrival at Juan Fernandez, where, after a loss of four-fifths of his sailors, he had, out of the two hundred survivors, only eight who were capable of duty. It was to root out, or at least to diminish this disease, and bring V.