Article ID: CBB011801798

The Little-Known Surgeon at the Port Jackson Settlements: Edward Laing from 1792 to 1794 (2021)

unapi

The paper examines the correspondence and career of a hitherto little-known army surgeon, Edward Laing (d. 1797) within the historical context of the health care foundations of the Port Jackson settlements. Laing arrived as the inaugural surgeon's mate of the newly formed NSW Corps of Infantry in February 1792, remaining at Sydney Cove for just under three years. His biography is not included in either the Australian Dictionary of Biography or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Two surviving communications by Laing include an extended report to a researcher of scurvy, Dr Thomas Trotter in 1792, which uniquely detailed the scandalous on-board conditions endured by eighteenth century convicted felons transported to the Antipodes together with a 1792 overview of the health status of the Sydney Cove settlement. Edward Laing's presence at Sydney Cove appeared in a contentious undated watercolour by the ‘Port Jackson Painter’. Each and every health provider at the experimental penal colony was an important figure to the overall success of developing the outpost, and thereby worthy of acknowledgement and scholarship.

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Authors & Contributors
Michael Joseph
Baron, Beth
Doyle, Aunty Kerrie
Grace Karskens
Sale, Kayla
Quigley, Killian Colm
Concepts
Colonialism
Medicine and the military; medicine in war
Surgery
Great Britain, colonies
Medicine
Physicians; doctors
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
20th century, early
17th century
16th century
Places
Australia
India
United States
France
Europe
Caribbean
Institutions
East India Company (English)
Canada. Canadian Army. Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps
Natural History Museum (London, England)
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