War, Wounds, and Medicine: A Re-Examination of the Crew of the Mary Rose

Abstract

The Mary Rose sank in the Solent on 19th July 1545. Only a few dozen of
the 450+ crew survived, the rest, trapped beneath anti-boarding netting and on the lower decks, went down with the ship. Despite numerous attempts to salvage and explore the wreck site over the centuries, it was not until excavations in the 1970s and 80s that revealed the starboard side of the Mary Rose, preserved beneath the silts of the Solent. Along with the ship, the contents were similarly preserved, including an undisturbed medical chest. The excavation not only revealed the material contents of the ship, but additionally the remains of at least 179 crew members, 92 of which were deemed as ‘Fairly Complete Skeletons’ and form the basis of this study.
This thesis aims to examine the medical care available to a military crew in the mid-16th Century. The Mary Rose provides a unique case study with the human remains being closely associated with evidence of medical practice, through the presence of the medical chest found in the Surgeon’s Cabin. The known date of the sinking places the site firmly within the wider context of Tudor medicine. Alongside the excavated evidence from the ship, the practice of surgery is examined through the texts available in the 16th century. The texts offer an understanding as to how a surgeon on board the Mary Rose may have treated the crew under his care.
This thesis provides an insight into the types of injury and trauma that
affected a living and working naval crew. The pathology found within the skeletal material was not the cause of death, but rather a representation of injuries with which they lived. The results show that alongside traumatic fractures and dislocations, the crew also suffered from degenerative changes to their joints and spines. The medical chest demonstrates that the Surgeon on board the Mary Rose would have been prepared with a wide range of equipment to perform everyday tasks, such as barbery, to the more extreme surgical procedures, such as amputation. This thesis provides a deeper insight into the health of the Mary Rose crew, and the medical treatment available to them as a living, fighting force of the Tudor navy.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Sonia Zakrzewski: orcid.org/0000-0003-1796-065X

ORCID for Anne Curry: orcid.org/0000-0002-7677-5561

Catalogue record

Export record