Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [192]
Scurvy On the variety of contemporary treatments for scurvy, see, for example, the English surgeon John Woodall’s book The Surgeon’s Mate (1617). “The use of the iuice of Lemons,” Woodall wrote, “is a precious medicine and well tried, being sound and good . . . It is to be taken in the morning, two or three spoonfuls . . . and if you add one spoonefull of Aquavitae thereto to a cold stomacke, it is the better.” But the same surgeon also saw scurvy as “an obstruction of the spleen, liver and brain,” and recommended an egg flip as a certain prophylactic. Other passages in his book suggest that any astringent would be of equal facility in battling the disease—barley water with cinnamon water was another cure proposed. J. J. Keevil, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1957–1963), I, pp. 220–1. One reason for the VOC’s reluctance to investigate fruit juices as a possible cure was the contemporary belief that citrus juices dangerously thickened the blood. F. J. Tickner and V. C. Medvei, “Scurvy and the Health of European Crews in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,” Medical History 2 (1958). See also Boucher, op. cit., pp. 26, 29–31; for the number of the Batavia’s dead, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1].
Sharks Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 167–8.
Homosexuality Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 164, 170–1; CR Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” pp. 98–9.
Women on board On the number of women, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1]. They included Lucretia and her maid, Zwaantie Hendrix; the predikant’s wife, Maria Schepens, three of her daughters, and her maid, Wybrecht Claasen; a widow, Geertie Willemsz; a young mother called Mayken Cardoes; and a pregnant girl named Mayken Soers, who were probably the wives of noncommissioned officers or men among the soldiers or the crew; a French or Walloon girl, Claudine Patoys; Laurentia Thomas, the corporal’s wife; Janneken Gist, Anneken Bosschieters, and Anneken Hardens, all of whom were married to gunners; two sisters, Zussie and Tryntgien Fredericxs (Tryntgien was the chief trumpeter’s wife); and the wives of the cook, the provost, Pieter Jansz, and Claas Harmanszoon of Magdeburg. On the VOC’s policy toward women, and encouragement of affairs with the women of the Indies, see L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 60–1, 62–3, 65, 75; Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, pp. 8, 12–14. The quotation from Jan Coen is cited by Taylor, p. 12. The quotation from Jacques Specx is cited by Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 100.
Ariaen and Creesje Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 29 [DB 161].
The fleet at the Cape of Good Hope The identity of the ships that arrived in company at the Cape is revealed in a letter written by an anonymous survivor of the Batavia on 11 December 1629 and published in the pamphlet Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630).
The Cape of Good Hope The English and Dutch left records of these visits in the shape of “post-office stones”—slabs of rock that they picked up on the sea shore and engraved with the names of their ships, their skippers, and the date of their arrival. Post-office stones had two functions. They marked the spots along the beach where the crew of each East Indiamen deposited ships’ papers and letters for their families at