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But
Gobineau seems to scorn such dangers; he notes the presence of
a doctor and emphasizes just how much the shore workers' health
is to be envied. Charles de la Morandiere, however, taking up
the same question some one hundred years later, does not treat
it so lightly. He discusses at length the problems of recruiting
doctors for service on the French Shore, their duties and their
efficiency. While various ministerial edicts of the period required
the presence of doctors on board vessels and on shore bases, the
law was not always obeyed. Quoting a report made by a Captain
Mer of the French naval station in Newfoundland, de la Morandière
notes that:
Captain
Mer tells how the fishing admiral came for him, bringing a fisherman
whose hand was in a very bad state. In fact it was in such a bad
state that a finger had to be amputated. He was a master-capliner.
I
asked the fishing admiral why no doctor was available. He replied:
the owners could not get one. Which means, quite simply: the owners
did not want the expense.
During
the nineteenth century, other French naval officers commented
on the absence of doctors. In 1872, a report cited by de la Morandière
noted that cases of scurvy, lung infections and typhoid fever
were almost always fatal for want of adequate treatment, and because
of the lack of basic care, normally harmless cuts might lead to
amputation.