History of Medicine

USHER PARSONS AND NAVAL MEDICINE IN

THE WAR OF 1812

     “The most outstanding naval surgeon in the War of 1812” is a generous tribute to a man who helped shape U.S. naval medicine. Who was he?

     His name is Usher Parsons, born in Maine in 1788. His father was a farmer and merchant, apparently with little money. After primary schooling through age 12 Usher worked clerking in stores, then at age 19 was apprenticed to a local doctor, attended anatomy lectures and read medical texts. Realizing he was still not well educated he studied Latin and Greek, then, in 1811, won an apprenticeship with Dr. John Warren, the founder of Harvard

Usher Parsons (National Library of Medicine)

 Medical School. The following year he was licensed by the Mass. Medical Society. After an unsuccessful try at private practice, knowing that war had come, he sought a commission in the Navy.

     The War of 1812 was in large part a naval war. When the United States declared war on England, the fledgling United States had almost no navy. President Madison, intending to invade Canada, built a naval force on the Great Lakes to support army troops. Two ships, the Lawrence and the Niagra, both 20-ton brigs (2-masted vessels), and numerous smaller vessels were constructed on Lake Erie. Parsons was assigned as surgeon’s mate to the Lawrence, named after the James Lawrence who had uttered the cry, “don’t give up the ship”.

     Three levels of medical personnel served on naval ships at the time: surgeon, surgeon’s mate, and the “loblolly boy”. The surgeon was responsible for the overall health of the ship, and duties included inspection of food and water, care of patients (and keeping records of care), surgeries when needed, and maintaining stores of medicines and instruments. The surgeon’s mate, having less education and experience, assisted in surgery (generally to restrain the patient) and performed routine patient care in sickbay (generally located forward on the gun deck in an empty gun space called a “bay”). The loblolly boy, named for a thick porridge (“loblolly”) doled out to sailors, fed and nursed patients, and performed leeching, cupping, and other duties.  

      The Lawrence engaged two British vessels. Moving in close it was severely damaged by the opposing ships and was saved only after the Niagra, holding off for unclear reasons, was finally brought in to defeat the British ships.

The dismasted center ship is the Lawrence, the large ship to the right is the Niagra, and the small craft is carrying
Commodore Perry to bring the Niagra into the battle.  British ships are on the left.
(Lithograph by J P Newell, courtesy Library of Congress) click on image to enlarge

     Wounds received by navy men were varied. Cannonball hits caused some injuries, but smaller shot and canister caused many more. A cannonball hit to a ship’s hull would send splinters flying inside the vessel, inflicting serious wounds, and if it hit at the waterline would open a hole to let water in. Sharpshooters were posted in the rigging to pick off men on enemy decks. The wounded were usually cared for in a room below waterline, to avoid shot and splinters.

     On the Lawrence the surgeon was ill, and Parsons took over. The wounded were carried to the wardroom (mess room for midlevel officers), a roughly 10 to 12 square foot room just above the water line. Occasional cannonballs sailed through as Parsons worked feverishly. He had no time for the usual amputations and simply applied tourniquets and pressure bandages to stop bleeding. The only immediate surgery, he noted in an account in the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, was when a “division was made in a small portion of flesh, by which a dangling limb that annoyed the patient was hanging to the body.” He labored until midnight to “administer opiates and preserve shattered limbs in a uniform position”. At dawn the next day he carried out the necessary amputations (no anesthesia), followed by treating fractures, dislocations, and superficial wounds. Out of about 100 men fit for duty, 21 were dead and 63 wounded.

     The next day he boarded the Niagra, whose surgeon he found ill in bed, with “hands too feeble to execute the dictates of a feeling heart,” and cared for the wounded. The number of wounded from both ships was 96, of whom only 3 later died, an extraordinary recovery rate for the times. Parsons cites three reasons: the wounded were kept on deck for two weeks, inhaling lots of fresh air; they were well fed with meat, vegetables, and eggs; and finally, they possessed “the happy state of mind which victory occasioned.” Pretty good results for someone freshly out of an apprenticeship and little practical experience.

The first book of Usher Parsons
(Hathi Trust)

     After the war Parsons earned his MD from Harvard and studied in Europe at Navy expense. Subsequent naval voyages took him to the tropics, the Middle East, and Europe, where he met many notables in science and medicine. From France he wrote, “Larrey’s manner of operating is pleasing…He is humane and solacing in his behavior to patients, differing in this respect very much from Dupuytren, whose behavior to them is savage.”¹ He later taught anatomy at Dartmouth and helped found the medical school at Brown University. He resigned his commission in 1823, opened a practice in Providence, and penned numerous papers. In 1824 he published Sailor’s Physician, a short handbook of naval medicine that recommended citrus fruits for scurvy and Peruvian bark for intermittent fever. The book later evolved into an important work: Physician for Ships, that went through at least 4 editions and was a

Section on sea-sickness from Physician for Ships, 3rd edition. (Hathi Trust) Click on image to enlarge.

leading text for naval doctors through the Civil War. Parsons, married to the sister of Oliver Wendell Holmes, died in 1868.

     Usher Parsons was a talented man who helped bring modern medicine to a fledgling American Navy.

     This essay was kindly reviewed and improved by Andre Sobocinski, Historian, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, U.S.Navy.

    [1] Dominique Larrey was Napoleon’s prized army surgeon. Guillaume Dupuytren was the gifted chief of surgery at the Hôtel Dieu-Hospital in Paris.

SOURCES:

Cushman, P. “Usher Parsons MD” N Y State J Med 1971; 71(24): 2891-4.

Cushman, P. “Naval Surgery in the War of 1812”. N Y State J Med 1972; 72(14): 1881-7.

Pleadwell, F L. “Usher Parsons (1788-1868), Surgeon, United States Navy”, 1922; United States Naval Med Bull 17: 423-60.

Daughan, George. 1812: The Navy’s War. 2011. Basic Books.

Goldowsky, S J. Yankee Surgeon: The Life and Times of Usher Parsons. 1988.

To subscribe to the blog, send an email to gfrierson@gmail.com.