The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide

April 7, 2011 8:42 AM

The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide. The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide is intended primarily for use on ships where no doctor is carried and it is necessary for laymen to assess and treat injuries and to diagnose and treat ill health. The Guide can also be recommended for use in other situations where professional medical advice is not readily available, for example on expeditions.
posted by leigh1 (35 comments total)

The Guide can also be recommended for use in other situations where professional medical advice is not readily available, for example on expeditions. in the United States, if you don't have a good job or lots of money.

USA!! USA!! USA!!
posted by orthogonality at 8:47 AM on April 7, 2011 [23 favorites]

Opens index. CTRL-F "peg leg".
posted by GPF at 8:48 AM on April 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

Hesperian's Where There Is No Doctor is similar, but intended more for long-term care and prevention in rural parts of the third world than urgent first aid. Interesting stuff.
posted by theodolite at 8:51 AM on April 7, 2011 [8 favorites]

(Incidentally, the illustrations and captions in Chapter 1 of Where There Is No Doctor would probably make for a popular meme if I knew how to publicize such things. "to smear the brains of a vulture on the goiter: DON'T")
posted by theodolite at 8:58 AM on April 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

And now a reading from Chapter 12: The Dying and the Dead.
Never consider anyone to be dead until you and others agree that:
- breathing has stopped.
- the heart has stopped.
- the person looks dead.

Here endeth the lesson
posted by punkfloyd at 9:04 AM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

§ 6.1 Sexually transmitted diseases, methinks this section might be one of the more popular…
posted by nfg at 9:08 AM on April 7, 2011

My mum had a copy of Where there is no Doctor from when she was a volounteer teacher in PNG in the 70's. She kept it when we moved there in the 90's and it was the most awesomeoust book ever - especially for a 9 year old! I think it's one of the reasons I got into healthcare as an adult.

Most first aid manuals are kind of whimpy in that every scenario ends with calling 911 or somehow getting ahold of medical professionals. Where there is no Doctor tells you the next step when that's not an option.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 9:11 AM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

for use on ships where no doctor is carried

That's what the Emergency Medical Hologram is for.
posted by saturday_morning at 9:11 AM on April 7, 2011 [8 favorites]

I particularly enjoyed the detailed description of what to do with ship's rats found dead during an onboard outbreak of bubonic plague.
posted by abx1-se at 9:12 AM on April 7, 2011

Where There Is No Doctor is my favorite book of all time (and it can be downloaded for free, legally). This looks like almost as much fun. Thanks!
posted by Forktine at 9:23 AM on April 7, 2011

DFT.gov.uk doesn't run a very tight ship. They got "it's" wrong on that page.
posted by emelenjr at 9:45 AM on April 7, 2011

I'm impressed with the tone of these guides. Very precise and direct, no bullshit language, but still proper and largely formal medical terminology. Until I got to this:

Although the baby is now delivered, the placenta (afterbirth) is still attached to the wall of the uterus. ... Once delivered, it looks like a small fleshy pizza.

posted by Nelson at 9:55 AM on April 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Definitely bookmarking this. Apart from its utility as intended (for actual medical intervention), I imagine it'll make a great gaming/fiction writing resource.
posted by immlass at 10:25 AM on April 7, 2011

Many ocean going freighters carry up to nine passengers. maritime law says at ten or more passengers, a doctor must travel on the voyage. to avoid the expense of a doctor most freightersbook less than 10 passengers. we traveled on a bulk type loaded freighter years ago, across the pacific. I am told now, the area for passengers has been upgraded, not like before, with just a bunk and no other rooms for passengers. we stayed most of the time in the ships dining room, playing cards, back in 1957.
posted by taxpayer at 10:43 AM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think I'll tuck that into my breast pocket, wrap aluminum wire around my waist, and step into the back-in-time machine.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:24 AM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dammit Jim!

I'm the doctor!
posted by mmrtnt at 11:53 AM on April 7, 2011

Hi, everybody.

I'm Doctor Nick.
posted by entropone at 11:54 AM on April 7, 2011

Once delivered, it looks like a small fleshy pizza.

Chicago, New York, or New Haven?

Oh, wait, "fleshy" - Chicago and/or sbarros'
posted by zippy at 12:00 PM on April 7, 2011

> Once delivered, it looks like a small fleshy pizza.

I'm not getting the visual, here.

With pepperoni and olives? Or ham and pineapple?
posted by mmrtnt at 12:05 PM on April 7, 2011

When I went to sea in pre satcom days and on small yachts transatlantic and further this was one of the essentials together with the Nautical Almanac, sight reduction tables and a copy of Norries.
This book could save your life, or just as important, someone else's, or at least make them more comfortable.
There was singleband hissy radio for communication fwhen over 40 miles offshore but not for smaller yachts.
This book taught me how to give an injection to a deckhand (Practise on a orange - then aim for top right quadrant).
It's still an essential but is going the way of the sextant which will soon be kept in a case labelled In case of emergency break glass.
It's still used as a basic text book for training.
posted by adamvasco at 12:11 PM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

At this moment, my copy of Where There Is No Doctor sits 2 feet away from the computer on which I type, on my desk at the uninsured community health clinic where I now work. I bought it 20 years ago when I was volunteering at a roving homeless outreach clinic as a teenager when I decided this was what I wanted to do with my life. I haven't opened it in years, but it seems like a good thing to have around. Sometimes you just have to remind yourself not smear feces on the umbilical cord stump...

But seriously, I favorited this hard, if only for the proper procedure on how to bury someone at sea.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:21 PM on April 7, 2011

How they could supply such quality lifesaving information without first requiring the rote memorization of ten thousand biochemical pathways is completely beyond this beleaguered medical student.
posted by The White Hat at 12:28 PM on April 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

This may be a good sidekick to this post.

The ADM 101 series consists of journals and diaries compiled by Royal Navy surgeons and assistant surgeons who served on HM ships, hospitals, naval brigades, shore parties and on emigrant and convict ships in the period 1793 to 1880.

posted by hanoixan at 12:30 PM on April 7, 2011

> With pepperoni and olives? Or ham and pineapple?

nothing fancy, just pizza sauce and cheese
posted by jfuller at 1:15 PM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm a beanplater, not a doctor!
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:45 PM on April 7, 2011

Is there an easy way to knit all of these into a single pdf? Cause I'd like this even more as a single item.
posted by paisley henosis at 3:00 PM on April 7, 2011

Yeah, I could do it, but I don't have anywhere to host the result. Want me to mail it to you?
posted by ryanrs at 3:20 PM on April 7, 2011

Is there an easy way to knit all of these into a single pdf? or even better, convert it from PDF into html? I'd love to have a copy in my phone.
posted by anadem at 3:51 PM on April 7, 2011

OK, I have merged everything into a single file. However, because my pdf concatenator is a quick-n-dirty script I wrote to fix my bank's broken PDF statements, the resulting file is 12MB, approximately four times the size of the original files. I'm not sure why it got bigger (but don't worry, I didn't do anything heinous like rasterize the file).

Send me an email if you want a copy (see my profile).
posted by ryanrs at 4:16 PM on April 7, 2011

Entire manual single file pdf (2.4 Mb).
posted by leigh1 at 5:27 PM on April 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ahh, but you've somehow biffed the character spacing (at least in Preview.app on the Mac). What tool did you use?
posted by ryanrs at 5:45 PM on April 7, 2011

I've just googled it and found entire book available for download.
posted by leigh1 at 5:53 PM on April 7, 2011

These PDF files will reside forever inside me Kindle. Arrrr.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 8:14 PM on April 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do not keep calling to ask where the helicopter is.
posted by Etaoin Shrdlu at 9:48 AM on April 8, 2011

Please state the nature of the medical emergency.
posted by effugas at 12:37 PM on April 8, 2011