354 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

was a gill of ordinary wine, and twelve ounces of musty and poorlybaked bread, per day. The surgeons visited the ships only once in several days, their manner was indifferent and even unfeeling, their stay on board very brief, and their medicines very sparingly bestowed.1 The greatest neglect was exhibited by the nurses, of whose conduct all our authorities speak in terms of indignant reprobation. These nurses seemed to take more interest in the death of their patients than in relieving their wants, and scarcely waited for the breath to leave their bodies before they despoiled them of their blankets, clothes, and even their hair. By day their duties were most carelessly performed, and with a heartlessness which added additional pangs to the sufferings of those who depended upon their assistance; but at night there was Ònot the least attention paid to the sick and dying, except what could be done by the convalescent;

from the bone and hung only by the heel. Coffin also says, that “many of the prisoners, during the severity of winter, had scarcely clothes sufficient to cover their nakedness, and but very few enough to keep them warm. To remedy those incon. veniences, we were obliged to keep below, and either get into our hammocks or keep in constant motion—without which precautions, we must have perished.”

1 Sherburne (p. 116). “Freneau, who, as a patient on the Hunter, had ample means of knowing whereof he spoke, has pictured, in scathing rhyme, the unfeeling conduct of these medical men.

“‘From Brooklyn heights a Hessian doctor came,
Not great his skill, nor greater much his fame;
Fair Science never called the wretch her son,
And Art disdained the stupid man to own.
* * * *
He on his charge the healing work begun
With antimonial mixtures, by the ton;
Ten minutes was the time he deignÕd to stay,
The time of grace allotted once a day.
He drench’d us well with bitter draughts, ’tie trae—
Nostrums from hell, and cortex from Peru.
Some with his pills he sent to PlutoÕs reign,
And some he blisterÕd with his flies of Spain;
His Tartar doses walkÕd their deadly round,
Till the lean patient at the potion frown’d,
And swore that hemlock, death, or what you will,
Were nonsense to the drugs that stuff’d his bill.
On those refusing, he bestow'd a kick,
Or menac'd vengeance with his walking-stick.
Here, uncontroll'd, he exercis’d his trade,
And grew experienc’d by the deaths he made.’”