Using diaries, journals, and correspondence, the author introduces readers to doctors who endured life on the sea, what types of medicines and surgical tools they used, and what sort of people they encountered. Illustrations and photos.

Using diaries, journals, and correspondences, Druett recounts the daily grind surgeons on nineteenth-century whaling ships faced: the rudimentary tools they used, the treatments they had at their disposal, the sorts of people they encountered in their travels, and the dangers they faced under the harsh conditions of life at sea.