Warfare and the creation of British imperial medicine, 1600-1800

The literature of British maritime and imperial medicine is reviewed here, noting that the key growth in the area coincided with the wars of the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries when the navy started to maintain a regular fleet overseas. Thereafter, the literature followed major imperial wars and focused on the needs of the state in war, and male servicemen. Medical prescriptions for cure were universal, empirical, and economical; experimenting on servicemen to develop cures was a necessity. The emphasis was on control of the human environment and regulation of the men.