What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to explore maritime medical practices during the 18th century, particularly in the context of expeditions to the Pacific.

April 24, 2026

Disclosure: Healing Encounters in the Pacific Ocean: The Dolphin Voyage (1766–68)

Key Points

The aim is to explore maritime medical practices during the 18th century, particularly in the context of expeditions to the Pacific.
Analyzing archival sources related to maritime medical encounters.
Examining medical practices among shipboard surgeons and captains during explorations.
Comparing these encounters to traditional narratives of discovery.
Identified unique medical practices that supported crew health on long voyages.
Revealed the importance of experiential learning zones on ships for health management.
Challenged conventional focuses on scurvy and hygiene improvements alone.

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I will examine maritime medical praxes during the latter half of the eighteenth century, reconfigured in Steven Weaver's terms as an “era of disclosure” (as opposed to discovery). With reference to the Wallis and Cook exploratory expeditions to the Pacific Ocean between 1766 and 1779, and moving away from a conventional focus on the considerable advances in the battle against scurvy and the improvement of hygiene onboard the ships, I will consider archival sources that record medical encounters, as well as widely studied cultural crashes, between peoples. During these contacts, I will argue that shipboard surgeons, doctors, and even captains engaged in “zones of experiential learning,” tending to the health of their crews, which was essential to survival on ships as they crossed the huge expanse of oceans with no or few landfalls.

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