Practicing Medicine on Shaky Grounds

The aim of this article is to reveal for the first time a broader participation of craft surgeons from German-speaking Central Europe in the enslavement trade. Using the Dutch and Danish enslavement trades as examples, the patterns and structures behind the recruitment of such ship’s surgeons will be illuminated. That this activity also had repercussions for the German-speaking hinterland will be illustrated using the example of a Prussian surgeon who published a manual for aspiring medical personnel on practicing aboard slaving vessels, based on his own experiences. His case demonstrates that in Germany, too, some medical practices were first tested aboard slaving vessels and subsequently found their way into general medical discourse.