SG war Report Feb 2025

Surgeon General’s Report to Virginia’s Naval Surgeons on Smallpox, 1778

Dear Fellow Virginia Surgeons of the Continental Navy:

Smallpox is a threat to our army and navy; it endangers our choice for liberty!

Smallpox wrought havoc on Benedict Arnold’s small army outside Quebec in 1775 and 1776, and likely has killed more than ten thousand Continental Army troops, many of them prisoners of war. Smallpox poses a fearful danger to warships at sea because of the relatively small size of sailing vessels and the conditions accompanying crowded quarters. Indeed, the disease could kill so many of the crew that the ship could not complete its mission.

The Rhode Island privateer Marlborough faced such a risk in January 1778. On January 2, the 20 gun Marlborough departed Edgartown in Martha’s Vineyard with 96 crew on board, commencing one of the most extraordinary voyages ever undertaken by an American privateer to this point in the war. Its mission was to attack and plunder British slave forts and capture British slave ships operating on the West Coast of Africa. On January 13, the ship’s crisis began to take shape. Samuel Babcock, the ship commander’s younger brother, became ill. That evening Captain Babcock, the ship’s doctor, and the rest of the officers diagnosed Samuel as suffering from smallpox; he died 11 days later. More than half of the sailors had not had the disease or been inoculated.

Captain Babcock, drawing on General Washington’s experience in 1777, ordered “For the benefit of the cruise,” all sailors who had never had smallpox were ordered to be inoculated. This meant forty-nine men and boys went through the procedure. On January 27 and 28, inoculated crew members broke out with smallpox. Most of them had mild cases of the disease, but 3 died. Fortunately for the surviving crewmen, no other sailors died of the disease, and the crisis ended. The inoculations contained the outbreak, even if there had been a steep cost with the five deaths reducing the crew to ninety-one “men & boys.”

What lessons can we learn from this?

inquire of potential sailors about their experience with smallpox
favorably select those who have a history of natural disease or inoculation
ship’s surgeon should examine any sailor with suggestive symptoms
strictly and quickly quarantine all sailors who show symptoms that could be smallpox
allow only those with prior small pox to minister to the ill sailor’s needs
dispose of all clothing, dressings, and personal articles belonging to the sailor
keep decks and riggings washed clean daily
in the case of death, immediate burial at sea should occur