navy. Before his time scurvy prevailed to a lamentable extent among seamen, so that important naval operations often failed from this cause alone. Fevers and other diseases arising from infection and the unhealthy state of ships also caused great mortality. Blane, in a memorial presented to the admiralty on 13 Oct. 1781, showed that one man in seven died from disease on the West India station in one year. He suggested certain precautions, especially relating to the supply of wine, fresh fruit, and other provisions, adapted to prevent scurvy, and also advocated the enforcement of stricter discipline in sanitary matters on board ship. In a second memorial (16 July 1782) he points out the great improvement effected by the carrying out of these suggestions, the annual mortality being reduced to one in twenty. The health of the fleet during the latter part of Rodney's command was indeed remarkably good, and greatly contributed to its successes, as was generously acknowledged by the commander himself in the following words:—‘To his (Dr. Blane's) knowledge and attention it was owing that the English fleet was, notwithstanding their excessive fatigue and constant service, in a condition always to attack and defeat the public enemy. In my own ship, the Formidable, out of 900 men, not one was buried in six months.’
In 1780 Blane brought out a small book ‘On the most effectual means for preserving the Health of Seamen, particularly in the Royal Navy.’ Later on, in 1793, his recommendation of lemon-juice as a preventive of the scurvy to Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, one of the lords of the admiralty, produced such good results as led to the issuing in 1795 of regulations for the universal use of this article in the navy. Though Blane was by no means the discoverer of this remedy, which had been known for more than a century, and had been strongly recommended by Dr. Lind and others, he was the means of introducing those regulations which have entirely banished scurvy from the queen's ships.
Shortly after Blane's return to England a vacancy occurred for a physician at St. Thomas's Hospital, and as he was now resolved to practise in London, he became a candidate. The influence of Lord Rodney, who after his brilliant victories was one of the most popular men in England, was warmly exerted on his behalf. In a letter to one of the governors Rodney bore the generous testimony to Blane's merits which has already been quoted. After a sharp contest Blane was elected, on 19 Sept. 1783, by 98 votes to 84. He held this office for twelve years, resigning it in 1795.
In 1785 Blane was appointed physician extraordinary to the Prince of Wales, on the recommendation of the Duke of Clarence, with whom he had become acquainted in his naval career; and afterwards became physician to the prince's household and his physician in ordinary. In 1785 also he produced the first edition of his work on the diseases of seamen, which passed through several editions and attained the position of a medical classic.
His court and hospital appointments, with other connections, appear to have procured Blane a large practice, but he was more especially known for his services in public affairs, naval, military, and civil.
In 1795 he was appointed one of the commissioners for sick and wounded seamen, a body which was virtually the medical board for the navy, and held this position till the reduction of the naval and military establishments after the peace of Amiens in 1802, when his services were rewarded with a doubling of his former pension.
His advice was frequently sought by the government and other authorities on sanitary and medical matters. Thus in 1799 the Turkey Company, which then controlled the whole of the Levant trade, consulted him about the quarantine regulations for the prevention of the importation of plague from the Mediterranean, and he was called upon by the government to draw up, in conjunction with other eminent physicians, the rules which formed the basis of the Quarantine Act of 1799. When the army returned from Egypt, it was transported under regulations drawn up by Blane to guard against the danger of introducing the plague into this country. The Home Office consulted him on a variety of subjects: on the means of keeping contagious fevers out of prisons, on the mortality which arose from the same cause in ships which carried convicts to Botany Bay, &c. The board of control sought his aid in framing improved regulations for the medical service in India. Hardly any department of state failed to resort to Blane's advice on one occasion or another. But the most important emergency on which he was called upon to advise the government was in connection with the disastrous Walcheren expedition. It was felt that the critical situation of the army, owing chiefly to the ravages of disease, was eminently a question requiring medical knowledge and experience. The army medical board (consisting of the physician-general, the surgeon-general, and the inspector-general) had lost the confidence of the government, first through having failed to foresee the dangers arising
