The Story. The Book.

The Story. The Book.

DR. WILLIAM  EDWARD  DILLON:  NAVY SURGEON  IN  LIVINGSTONE’S  AFRICA

This book tells the extraordinary life-story of an Officer-Surgeon who travelled in the 1860s on Tall Ships to South America, North America, South Africa, Zanzibar, Arabia, India and Ceylon.

 

Front cover of book on Dr. Dillon

            Having completed this adventuring on the high seas, the story continues as Dillon joins his great buddy, Lieutenant Verney Cameron on an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society in London to find Dr. David Livingstone, who had not been heard of in Africa for over two years.

            Was Livingstone sick?  He had a history of suffering serious maladies in Africa. 

    OR   Had Livingstone “gone native”?  Good men had been known to disappear before, in this fashion.

    OR  Was Livingstone even alive?  His proposed explorations had included travelling through territory where cannibalism, boiling victims alive, had previously been recorded.

            The two Naval Officers set out, were soon joined by two further companions and over 300 porters, many soldiers with arms, and donkeys and dogs.  They tramped through marshes, across swift-flowing rivers and through hostile territories, only to find Livingstone had recently died.  His body’s journey to 

Westminster Abbey is described in the book, as well as the death of some expedition members.

           

 Research for this book took ten years.  6 cousins and 3 companions followed the explorers’ trail through Tanzania. Their original photographs fill the pages, as do original sketches by Dillon, and further maps, mini-biographies, and reproductions of diary passages written by Dillon while on the oceans of the world.   

Cameron wrote a book in 1877 about the expedition and his Across Africa is fully quoted in this new book, as are a number of original letters held by the author, all used skilfully to describe events accurately. 

There are THREE versions of this book, available for purchase: Hardcover, Paperback and E-book.

Some words of caution to shoppers: (many of you will know these already!)

(a) Prices vary from one site to another

(b) Prices vary from one day to another, even on the same site - they will go up one day, down another day.

(c) Shipping prices also change, and some places might offer "Free Shipping."

(d) Some sites might write: "only 2 copies available" OR "not in stock" OR "takes 3 weeks."  Please ignore these notes - basically these are rubbish. They are a ploy to get you to buy the book, or not to buy a certain version, or to encourage you to browse their site and participate in their promotions of something else.

Shoppers need to shop wisely and carefully.  Security is not an issue - shoppers just need to be aware of the marketing strategies within the publishing business.

Should you be interested, books are available on the following sites: 

My website: www.juliaturner.ca

 FriesenPress Bookstore: http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000012305098/Julia-Turner-Dr.-William-Edward-Dillon%2C-Navy-Surgeon-in-Livingstone%27s-Africa

All Amazon on-line sites

Blackwells: http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/category.jsp?route=buy

Waterstones: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/julia+turner/dr-+william+edward+dillon2c+navy+surgeon+in+livingstone27s+africa/10724913/

Chapters (Canadian site) is offering only the E-book - and why this is so, is a mystery . . . if this should change, this notice will, also!

And so, dear Readers, this is the final "letter" or "post" to you on this site.  And to you, the Readers, I owe a huge THANK YOU for participating in this journey.  Your interest has grown, and your reception has always been warm and encouraging.  Readers have logged onto this site from every Continent, and Readers have read 27 posts!

I also thank those who assisted in developing this site and in giving advice: Sue Urie (wife of first cousin) and Brennen Cross (grandson) and Derek Turner (son).  As you can see, I'm into Family History - so I am developing a new blogsite, the first weekly post to be listed on September 5, 2014, and called:

Researching, Telling and Writing Family History

Click here to go to Research Blog 

New readers joined in reading this blog this week, from:

Russia, India, Spain, Italy and Poland.

 WELCOME!

Final credit for this post goes to:  SOPHIE WALBEOFFE, who generously donated her beautiful painting titled :    "Red Hot"

to be on the cover of the book on Dr. Dillon.

Readers might enjoy the following link to Sophie's Gallery, the Osbourne Studio Gallery in London, where further wonderful paintings by Sophie may be viewed: 

 http://www.osg.uk.com/

And so "Farewell" until the new blog is posted

Why?

WHY  DID  DR.  DILLON  CHOOSE  TO STUDY  MEDICINE?

and

WHY  DID  DR.  DILLON  JOIN  THE  ROYAL  NAVY?

In the middle of the 1800s, in 1859, William Dillon, or Bill as he was known by his friends, was 13 years old.  Tall for his age, he was athletic and active.

He had two older sisters, both smart, but life was difficult for them.  It was not good for a young lady to have any ideas in her head, let alone express them.  It was expected that these girls would spend most of their time on their personal toilette, organizing the care of their clothes and generally being quiet and demure.

Chamber Pots.

These were used in all bedrooms, especially at night, when going outside to the toilet would be too much.  It was one of the duties of a maid to empty these pots each morning.

These were still in use in Ireland in the 1950s.  As a child growing up in Ireland, I could see them under the beds.  Many had elaborate decorative paintings around the inside and outside edges, which helped balance the aroma surrounding them

 These wash stands were present in every bedroom.  The jug, or pitcher, held water for washing.  This cold water was poured into the basin for washing.  The dirty water was left in the basin for the maid to remove later.

Maids ran down the back staircase with dirty water in basins and pots, and ran up the staircase with cleaned and refreshed pots and basins.  Never were they seen on the main, carpeted staircase, where the family of the house and guests walked up or down.  Of course, maids also cleaned the house, which included removing fireplace cinders daily, and setting a fire in every room.


 Even if they didn't feel like it, they had to act like it!  Every day, the two Dillon girls had to arrive in the drawing room washed and dressed to perfection, with their long hair done up beautifully.  There they would sit, waiting quietly and calmly, available for any visitor who might come to call.
In the afternoons, a tutor would arrive at the house, and the girls became good readers and wrote in a flowery script.  In the evenings they painted on canvases or embroidered linen.  It was a quiet life.

The eldest girl found it a struggle to keep herself steady.  Her father took her out for walks, when they discussed philosophy or human nature.  There were no libraries, and the books at home had been read many times.  It was natural Anna Maria turned to religion for help.  She must have read the Bible through, cover to cover, many times.  She knew many passages by heart.  When she was older Anna would walk to the Church's Book Depository where she could borrow books of sermons or books on theology.  Her grand daughter Daphne wrote that her grandmother suffered from religious melancholy.

And what of the two younger Dillon children, our Bill and his brother John?

John: he was a quiet, lovable boy who later became a Clergyman in the Anglican Church of Ireland.  He became Rector of the parish of Rathmichael, south of Dublin:

Rathmichael Church













Bill:  He found the quiet life led by his sisters to be suffocating.  High in energy he could hardly focus on his studies, but we know he read Latin and Greek - his sister Anna was delighted with "Dear William" when he offered to teach her Greek.  But - the lessons didn't last long, and were not again mentioned.
 Bill's father was very aware of his son's personality, and Bill spent summers on the west coast of Ireland, swimming and sailing and exploring the countryside, wild and free.  When Bill was a teenager, the family moved to a house south of Dublin, near the coast, in Dunlaoghaire (pronounced dun-leary).  Here Bill  and his brother John owned a sailboat, and they were often out on the water.

Dunlaoghaire, south of Dublin

No doubt, Bill would have seen tall ships similar to this one, moored at Dunlaoghaire.

This sight would have been inspiring to the young lads, Bill and his friends, interested in getting away.

Remember - Ireland was under British Rule back then, and "The Navy" and all her vessels, would have been Britain's Royal Navy.

Meanwhile, Bill's mother had two brothers who had travelled far and wide on board bit sailing vessels.  They would arrive home and have dinner with Bill's family.  

Oh!  The tales they told!

But Bill  was advised not to start from the bottom on board a ship.  Instead, why not study to be a doctor and travel that way, as an officer, a surgeon, on-board?   It was the Officers who had all the fun.  

That's what Bill did.

He studied Medicine at the

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

in Dublin:

He also took courses at 

Trinity College, Dublin University

just down the road from the RCSI

And so it was.

Bill became a Surgeon in the Royal Navy.

Next time:  How, Where, When - all about purchasing and availability of the book titled  

Dr. William Edward Dillon, Navy Surgeon in Livingstone's Africa.

AND WONDERFUL NEWS!

Welcome to a reader from TANZANIA!

AND THANK YOU ALL FOR READING ALONG.  GREETINGS TO YOU ALL.

Ireland

THE  IRELAND  OF  DR.  DILLON

or

HOW  I  DISCOVERED  ALL  ABOUT  HIS  FAMILY

The Dillons lived in Ireland for hundreds of years.  Most of our Dr. Dillon's family were well-to-do.  They lived in castles like these:

Well preserved -

still inhabited today.

A ruin in a field

By the time Dr. Dillon was born, his family was living near cities, in houses like this one:

Or in fashionable terraced houses

inside the city limits.

And one cannot think of Irish families without asking the questions:

 "Were they 

Catholics or Protestants?"

"What church did they go to?"

or

"Did they dig with the left or the right foot?" 

What a surprise!
This family was a bit of both.  I think each married the one they fell in love with - and they lived mostly in the border areas between the Catholic regions to the West  and the better land appropriated by the English to the East.  The Dillons were outgoing, well-liked by both sides of religious conflict, helped both sides as they saw the need and surely they had a great sense of fun and good humour.

The two towns shown on the map of Ireland above, were where Dr.  Dillon's family were living in the 1800s.  And how do I know this?

Yes, from Records, but only partly.  You see, most of the records were kept by the English, and most of these were stored in the Custom House, in Dublin - beside the River Liffey: 

And some Irish people didn't like these records.

Roddy Doyle wrote it best in his memoir, Rory and Ita, describing how his grandfather, Tim Doyle, was involved in the burning down of the Custom House in May, 1921:

   "He was one of the men detailed to go down to the cellars, armed with pick-axes to stave in the barrels of lovely whiskey and brandy maturing down there.  He was picked because he didn't drink.  They then lit the the wood and paper torches  and threw them into the sea of alcohol; and got up the stairs as quickly as they could.  When they got outside the Custom House, the British troops had arrived and he told me that he ran down the quays faster than any Olympic runner, with bullets hopping around him.  Five men were killed that day, so the raid was considered by many to have been a tactical disaster; but he got a medal for burning down the Custom House and they had, in fact, broken the back of the British establishment in Ireland.  All their records were gone and they couldn't conduct the civil administration of the country."

If the records were burned up in flames long before my time, what records did I use?

Out in the countryside and in every church, records were also kept.  However, these records are not of births and deaths, but of christenings, of marriages and of funerals.

So one gets an idea of time - but difficulties arise when these church records show, for example, 3 siblings being christened together on the same Sunday!

Family trees may be guessed at - but guesses can be very inaccurate!

For example, my grandfather says our Dr. Dillon was eldest in his family.  I scoured Dr. Dillon's sister's diary.  I transcibed the diary by hand.  Then I computerised the words.  I found some gems!                   

Here is a copy of part of a page from 1856-1858:

Aug 23d: Jane's birthday - she enters her twenty third year

 And earlier the same year, under July:

 Saturday 25th: Entered this day my twenty-fourth year - 'O guide me in the way of true wisdom'

From Navy records I discovered Dr. Dillon was born in 1837.

From the diary above, I discovered one sister was born in 1834 and the other in 1835.

Our Dr. Dillon was the third child and first son.

If you travel from Dublin to Tralee, done with coach-and-four in Dr. Dillon's time, you would pass through countryside similar to that found in the video below.  Always beautiful, changing little - and this video also tells you about the wind and a lovely Irish voice speaks at the end.  

Enjoy this treat! [Make sure your volume is up, speakers on!]

In Tralee, Dr. Dillon's grandparents lived.  Grandfather William was a Protestant Landowner, and he fell in love with the most beautiful woman in Tralee.  They were married.  Grandmother Jane was Roman Catholic and her first language was Irish, or Gaelic.  She wrote: "I don't have the English very well."

Grandmother Jane and Grandfather William had 5 children, 2 boys followed by three girls. 

Tradition had it that when parents were from different religions, the boys followed the father's religion and the girls followed the mother's.  But somehow, the two boys and the eldest girl were baptised together in a Protestant church in Tralee.  Family stories tell us the Roman Catholic Priest then caught up with the family, and the last two girls were baptised Catholics.  That girl who somehow slipped into the Protestant baptism that day was our Dr. Dillon's mother, Catherine.

It was Catherine who married well, a Protestant fellow, also named William, and they had the family whose birthdays are described in the diary above.  And that is why our Dr. Dillon's first name is William - he comes by it honestly.  And that is also why Dr. Dillon's book actually begins in Tralee - for where else should it start, but where it all began?

Why did he become a Doctor?  And, why did he join the Navy?  NEXT TIME - 

Thank You for reading this post, and a big welcome to readers:

from Taiwan, from the Dominican Republic and from Brazil.

Dr. Dillon's Bag

THE  MEDICAL  BAG  OF  DR.  WILLIAM  EDWARD  DILLON

When Dr. Dillon left Dublin to join his first Tall Ship as an Assistant-Surgeon, he was wearing his dress uniform and he was carrying his medical bag.  He had studied well and trained hard, and he was ready for adventure.  The ship he joined looked similar to this:

The sounds of this ship would have been:

White sails flapping in the winds, the swishing of the bow surging through the waves, the splashing of water from the bow heaving down in the swell, the commands being shouted out by officers-in-charge and the curses of the sailors as they struggled to fulfill orders.
And all of that occurred when the weather was fair.
Whenever a storm hit, everything changed.
  On Christmas Day, 1860, at dawn, our brave Dr. Dillon was up on deck as a storm ravaged and blew, with waves the size seen in the movie The Perfect Storm.  He chose to be on deck - he had anticipated this experience for many years and here he was near the foot of South America, an ocean region notorious for bad weather, on a wooden sailing vessel, being blown about like a cork. He wrote about it in his diary.  Read all about it in the book:
  Dr. William Edward Dillon, Navy Surgeon in Livingstone's Africa.

Dillon was on-board as the Doctor, and below decks, safely stowed, were the tools of his trade.  He would have had a Doctor's Bag full of instruments in case of need.  He would have had to purchase all of these and the bag himself, and I'm sure his Dad, a man of privilege and social stature, would have paid the bill.  It was expected of a doctor when first commissioned by the Royal Navy to arrive fully equipped.

The bag was likely similar to this:

 With a top and side which opened fully, wide and easily, speedily displaying all the contents.

The zippered top had not yet been developed, and any other top-closure would have been no good either. Finding something inside, in an emergency, would have proved a nightmare, everything having become jumbled together!



And inside the bag?  Tools required by a Doctor to combat on-board diseases, such as malaria, unknown tropical fevers and sexually-transmitted diseases.  Stomach worms , bites by tarantulas and lightning strikes all had to be cared for.  If there had been a battle or confrontation, whether at sea or on land, the Surgeon was required to grasp and cut through tissue and bone, to tie up blood vessels and to pull out from torn flesh the round balls of musket shot.

All of these were done knowing any kind of infection could lead to fearful gangrene and death.  Amputations, dreaded by Surgeon and Patient alike, were done rarely, as they frequently led to death.  There was chloroform around in Dillon's time, and a cloth soaked in it was held to the Patient's nose and mouth - the fumes knocked the Patient unconscious - but there was virtually no control of quantity, and fearful of a fatal overdose, rarely were sufficient fumes administered for any length of time.

Open wounds, cuts and exposed flesh were cauterized using boiling tar, or if time was short, searing, redhot iron, or even an open flame.  This ensured a seal against infection and against flies and parasites.

Almost 60 years before Dr. Dillon rode the high seas, the Royal Navy had seen victory at Trafalgar in 1805, and shortly afterwards the Royal Navy was committed to ending all slave trade.  Mosquitoes were not yet identified as carriers of malaria and yellow fever.  Through all this time there were appalling losses of seamen and officers to diseases and to uninformed treatments by well-meaning medical personnel.

The Surgeon, whether on or off duty, had to always carry on his person a set of pocket instruments.  These consisted mostly of a scalpel, scissors, forceps, probes, needles, a catheter and some silk to act as a tourniquet.  The medical bag, however, was more "heavy duty."  It contained knives - similar to those in my kitchen, and saws - like I have in my house-repair toolbox.  He had dozens of curved needles, 6 screw tourniquets, artery forceps, strong scissors,  a razor, one pound of ligature thread and a retrieving scoop.  A common procedure was to  bleed the patient, and for that he carried 6 lancets, 2 catheters, a cupping apparatus to collect the blood, and special needles to sew the cut together again.  For binding wounds, Dillon would have had flannel or linen rolled bandages and rollers, a set of splints for binding broken legs and an apparatus for suspending a patient, if necessary.


And don't forget, a surgeon was dentist, too, in those days!  2 pairs of forceps, a lance for the gums and a "tooth instrument" were part of the package. 
For every ailment a sailor could encounter, rum was administered, which helped all involved.  The Doctor was in charge of ensuring enough rum was always at hand for every possible situation, including his own weariness at day's end!

When Dillon was marching across Tanzania, a porter carried his "box" - which was a box of bottles, possibly colour-coded bottles, containing quinine, chloroform, spirits and anything else he considered useful, similar to those shown here.  The sweet shown on a label to the left, would be used to ease the swallowing of some vile-tasting concoction!

Before germs were understood, it was a struggle for a doctor to treat his comrades and fellow travellers.

And then, when the doctor got sick, who was there to treat him?

ALL IN THE BOOK!!

Thank you for joining in reading this account.  Warm welcome to readers in the Czech Republic and in Latvia! 

Next time:  Back to the beginning of all these adventures

 - to Ireland, the land where Dillon was born and grew up

A Full Box and a Full Kit.