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.