Ship Surgeons On Transatlantic Ocean Liners

Ship Surgeons On Transatlantic Ocean Liners provides insight and short biographical accounts of Ship Surgeons from the early 1900s.

Dr. J. Fourness Brice

The dean of the surgeons of the Atlantic Fleet, if not among the steamships of the world, is Dr. J. Fourness Brice, of the steamship Cymric of the Boston-Liverpool service of the White Star Line. Dr. Brice has practiced his profession on shipboard since 1859. He was born in England in 1826, was graduated from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeions, New York, in 1858.

His connection iwht the steamship service came about as the result of an accident. He had already come into extensive practice in South Yorkshire, having followed in the steps of a kinsman lately deceased. When on day on a foxhunt, his mount fell, and the young physician received an injury that prevented his continuing in prctice. He came to America, and, after an extended stay, returned as surgeon of the Amercian Steamship Congress.

For two years, Dr. Brice was an intern in a London hospital. Then he tried to reassume his Yorkshire practice, but his health was such that he could not go on, and decided to look for a position as ship's surgeon. He secured an appointment to the Scotia of the Cunard Line, with which he contined for thirteen years.

In 1879, his allegiance was tansferred to the White Star Line. After sailing on various vessels, he was assigned to the steamship Germanic, on which he served for twenty-three years. Very recently he left that vessel and was transferred at his request to the steamship Cymric.

Dr. Brice, in spite of his seventy-eight years, is an active, progressive physician. When he is ashore in America he spends most of his time in the hospitals in order to keep abreast of the times. When the ship is at Liverpool, however, he betakes hemself to his Yorkshire home, where he enjoys the freedom of the moorlands and the society of his wife and two daughters. Dr. Brice has crossed the ocean nearly 900 times.

Dr. R. Lloyd Parker

Another very well-known meical man at sea is Dr. R. Lloyd Parker, late past assistant surgeon in the United States Navy, who is now attached to the American liner St. Louis of the American Line. Dr. Parker is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh in the class of 1879. As soon as he completed his hospital course, he became a surgeon on a ship of the allan Line for two trips.

Throughout the Spanish-American War, Dr. Parker was a past assistant surgeon in the navy, attached to the United States steamship st. Louis. For his services in conveying the wonded of Admiral Cervera's fleet from Santiago to Portsmouth, NH, Dr. Parker received the thanks of the Spanish GOvernment.

Dr. O'Loughlin

Dr. O'Loughlin, of the Oceanic, a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicans in Dublin New York, entered the White Star service in 1872 upon the conslusion of his hospital course. He has made more than 700 trips across the Western ocean. He has done a good deal of surgical work at sea, his last major operation being an amputation at the hip joint. Next to Dr. Brice, Dr. O'Loughlin has been longer at sea than any other transatlantic surgeon.

The ship surgeon, hoever he may devote some of his time to the amenties of civilized life, cannot be the social butterfly he is sometimes represented as being. Indeed, most surgeons see the passengers only at the table over which they preside, and occasioonally on the promende deck. The ship surgeon leads, in fact, practically the same kind of life as his comfere ashore. He is a busy man. The larger fessels seldom carry fewer than 500 people on each trip, and in the summer months 1,500 would be nearer an average number

"Ship Surgeons On Transatlantic Ocean Liners" The Medical News: A Weekly Journal of Medical Science, Medical Society of the State of New York, Saturday, February 11, 1905, Page 279-280.

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