Charles Abercrombie Anderson R. N.,

Convict Ship Surgeon-Superintendent


Naval Service

Charles Abercrombie Anderson M.D., was appointed Assistant Surgeon on 25 August 1841[2].

He served on the Queen in 1843 and the Formidable in 1844. He was appointed to the flag-ship Asia in the Pacific in 1849.[1]


Medical Register

Medical Register 1865 entry for Charles Abercombie Anderson as follows:


Surgeon Superintendent

He was appointed Surgeon Superintendent to the convict ship Lord Dalhousie in 1852.

The Lord Dalhousie departed Cork 30 April 1852 and arrived in Van Diemen's Land with 322 male convicts on 14 August 1852.

Arrival in VDL of the Lord Dalhousie


Three hundred and twenty-five convicts were embarked; there were 115 people treated by the surgeon and three people died on the passage out.

Below are some of the convicts and passengers mentioned in the Surgeon's Journal' 'sick list':

The first being two infants who were vaccinated during the voyage -
Matilda Miller, aged 9 weeks, vaccinated 20 June and 25 June 1852, not satisfactory.
Abina Ryan, aged 7 weeks, vaccinated 15 July 1852, not satisfactory.

Folio 24: Charles Byrne, aged 20, Prisoner; diarrhoea and general debility. Put on sick list, 17 April 1852, Kingstown [Dun Laoghaire]. Disembarked at Queenstown [Cobh], 25 April 1852. 'A spare delicate lad, under sentence of ten years transportation’, embarked from Richmond Government Prison, Dublin. He had made light of his symptoms because he was anxious to travel in the same ship as his brother, John Byrne. Disembarked at Spike Island.

Folio 25: John Byrne, aged 21, Prisoner; diarrhoea and atrophia. Put on sick list, 24 April 1852, Queenstown [Cobh]. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852. The brother of Charles Byrne, 'an emaciated lad of weakly constitution with an ill developed [osseous] system'. He became progressively more emaciated with oedema of the extremities, he was sent to the hospital with little hope of recovery.

Folios 25-26: Timothy Crowley, aged 19, Prisoner; disease or hurt, phthisis. Put on sick list, 7 May 1852, at sea. Died, 11 July 1852.

Folio 26: James Hughes, aged 20, Prisoner; atrophia and icterus. Put on sick list, 25 May 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852. He said he had been ill for some time and suffered febrile symptoms occasionally.

Folios 26-27: Patrick Slattery, aged 20, Prisoner; phthisis. Put on sick list, 29 May 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852. The disease was well established when he was placed on the list.

Folio 27: Timothy Conway, aged 20, Prisoner; purulent opthalmia. Put on sick list, 31 May 1852. Discharged, 4 August 1852. He had suffered repeated attacks of opthalmia.

Folios 27-28: John Hughes, aged 26, Prisoner; acute dysentery. Put on sick list, 25 June 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852. 'A weak and emaciated man of a lymphatic temperament', he had been on the sick list with diarrhoea from 13 to 23 June.

Folios 28-29: Martin Delany, aged 27, Prisoner; acute dysentery. Put on sick list, 30 June 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852. 'A strong healthy man but of loose fibre'.

Folio 29: William Rourke, aged 22, Prisoner; synovial inflammation, right knee. Put on sick list, 30 June 1852. Discharged, 16 July 1852, but returned to the list with the same symptoms, 24 July 1852. Discharged, 11 August 1852.

Folio 30: Kean Mahony, aged 20, Prisoner; dysentery. Put on sick list, 4 July 1852. Died, 4 August 1852. Suffered constipation, followed by diarrhoea and then dysentery. Attributed to 'atmospherical vicissitudes operating on a constitution having impaired functions, irritable and feeble, and preceded by a state of local obstruction and congestion of the canal, occasioned by torpor of the biliary system'. Perforation of the large intestine by gangrene was suspected as the pathological condition but the surgeon was unable to perform a sectio cadaveris.

Folio 31: John Halloran, aged 45, Prisoner; catarrhal opthalmia. Put on sick list, 13 July 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852.

Folio 31: Adam Wilson, aged 50, Prisoner; wound of right hand. Put on sick list, 31 July 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 18 August 1852. Lacerated wound of the fore, middle and ring fingers of the right hand, occasioned by the surging of the chain cable.

Folios 31-32: Richard Brown, aged 22, Prisoner; phthisis. Put on sick list, 6 August 1852. Died, 16 August 1852, in the harbour of Hobart Town. Entered on the sick list with symptoms of confirmed phthisis, he was so near death on 14 August, when they arrived at Hobart Town, it was thought useless and inhumane to send him to hospital. The rest of the prisoners were landed on 17 August 1852. The surgeon had observed his increasing weakness and emaciation for several weeks.

Folio 32: James McGrath, aged 32, Prisoner; paronychia. Put on sick list, 15 August 1852 Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 16 August 1852.

Folio 33: Andrew Miller, aged 2 years; tabes. Put on sick list, 30 May 1852. Died, 5 July 1852. The male child of pensioner Joseph Miller, apparently a fleshy and healthy boy when embarked, he was entered on the list with diarrhoea and atrophy. The surgeon has no doubt 'the disease was induced and hurried on to a fatal termination by the damp and cold atmosphere of the barracks, the unwholesome residence of guard and emigrants'.

Folio 33: Mary Turner, aged 19 months; tabes. Put on sick list, 26 May 1852. Died, 2 August 1852. The female child of pensioner Henry Turner. Placed on the sick list with 'symptoms of diarrhoea and intestinal derangement induced by want of proper maternal care and kept up by the mother persisting in keeping the child at the breast'.

Folio 34: Matilda Miller, aged 32, Wife of Pensioner Joseph Miller; febris intermittens quotidiana. Put on sick list, 30 July 1852. Disembarked at Hobart Town, 21 August 1852. 'A woman of delicate appearance, the mother of a large family, gave birth to a female child on the 17 April 1852 at Kingstown and made both a quick and good recovery'. Her health declined after the death of her child, her illness was attributed to the 'cold damp and unwholesome atmosphere of the barracks'. Disembarked with the guard and emigrants.

Folio 34: Eliza Butler, aged 32, Wife of Pensioner James Butler; parturition and enteritis. Put on sick list, 15 August 1852. Discharged to the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town, 17 August 1852. Delivered of a female child on the night of 10 August 1852 and recovered by 14 August but was attacked with enteritis the following day.[2]


Death

Charles Abercrombie Anderson died 25 February 1872 in London

References

[1] United Services Magazine

[2] Anderson, Charles Abercrombie, Medical and surgical journal of Her Majesty's convict ship Lord Dalhousie - National Archives


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