Lord Nelson back at work 30 minutes after losing arm

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Lord Horatio Nelson was giving orders 30 minutes after his arm was amputated, according to journals in the National Archive that illustrate the importance of medical skill in securing Britain’s naval might.

A collection of 1,200 naval journals, not seen for 200 years, depicts the horror of life on board British fighting vessels in the 18th and 19th centuries, including details of the medical treatment given to Nelson.

Researchers at the National Archives in Kew have gathered personal accounts written by surgeons at sea, revealing some of the first scientific investigations into diseases such as scurvy.

Among the documents, reported in The Independent, is a handful of journals describing the remarkable speed and skill with which medics nursed Nelson back to health from surgery – twice.

It is claimed that within 30 minutes of having his right arm cut off, Nelson was again issuing orders to his men. He had been hit in the right arm by a musket ball shortly after stepping ashore on the Spanish island of Tenerife in July 1797.

Lord Nelson was taken to HMS Theseus for treatment, where he was bleeding heavily. On 25 July the ship’s surgeon, James Farquhar, wrote in his journal: “Compound fracture of the right arm by a musket ball passing thro a little above the elbow; an artery divided; the arm was immediately amputated.”

On 1 August Farquhar noted: “Admiral Nelson; amputated arm; continued getting well very fast. Stump looked well; no bad symptoms whatever occurred… The sore reduced to the size of a shilling in perfect good health, one of the ligatures not come away.”

At the start of August 1798, Lord Nelson was shot in the head at the Battle of the Nile. The surgeon’s log of HMS Vanguard claims he was discharged from the ship’s hospital after only one month despite having endured a gaping hole in his head.

“Wound on the forehead over the right eye, the cranium is bare for more than an inch, the wound three inches long. Discharged 1 September. The wound was perfectly healed on the first September but as the integuments were much enlarged, I applied (every night) a compress wet with a discutient embrocation for nearly a month which was of great service.”

Graphic drawings and illustrations in the journals reveal the attempts by navy doctors to find ways of dealing with scurvy.