Healing Hands

With the closest doctor hundreds of miles away, whaling captain Hartson Bodfish realized that the health and the lives of the crew depended on him. He brought with him a medical library and "a set of the finest surgical instruments" that he could find.

Frostbite, the freezing or partial freezing of some part of the body, was a constant problem. If gangrene, a consequence of frostbite, set in, the affected area often had to be amputated in order to save the patient's life. Bodfish became very adept at performing amputations. He described one incident,

"We took off his toes and both heels. The first plan was to take off both his feet, but I argued against it, because I knew that if any part of the foot was saved it would be much easier to attach artificial feet. My advice was taken, and the man was able to get fixed up so that he could walk with just a cane."

In another instance, Bodfish gives a gruesome account of having to amputate his own toe when no one on the ship was willing to perform the surgery for him -

"My foot was numb from the accident. I knew that the longer I waited, the more painful the amputation would be, so, with the steward and cabin boy looking on and groaning, I whetted up my knife and cut it off myself. The way it was injured made it necessary for me to unjoint the bone from my foot, too, but I did it, and there was considerable satisfaction in having performed my own surgical operation."

Bodfish would generally begin each operation by giving his patient a large drink of whiskey and then administering the chloroform. He felt the anesthetic worked better with the whiskey.

In preparation for their stay in the North, Isaac Stringer took courses in dentistry, obstetrics, and minor surgery. His wife Sadie contributed to this cause by studying nursing at Grace Hospital in Toronto.

One of Stringer's first operations was the removal of a whaler's two crushed fingers. Sadie assisted and changed the dressings until the hand healed. They often pulled teeth, stitched up wounds, and attended to other medical emergencies. Sadie gave birth to her second child, a son named Herschel, while living on the Island. She had only her husband to assist her.