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Raising boys for the navy : health, welfare, and the British sea services, 1870-1905
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Juzda Smith, Elise (2021) Raising boys for the navy : health, welfare, and the British sea services, 1870-1905. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 76 (1). pp. 53-77. doi:10.1093/jhmas/jraa054 ISSN 0022-5045.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jraa054
Abstract
Efforts to improve the quality and quantity of seafarers in the Royal Navy and merchant service became a particular concern amidst the degeneration debates of late-Victorian Britain. Maritime reformers not only promoted fitness in adult sailors, but particularly sought to improve health and physique of boy recruits in order to rear a new generation of healthy sailors. This article shows how both services experimented with tighter admission criteria and dietary and exercise reforms, and became early advocates of using metrical standards to exclude all but the fittest, healthiest boys from training opportunities. While the physical monitoring of boy recruits undoubtedly showed the value of early lifestyle interventions in fostering healthy development, the rising physical standards of British seafarers in this period was just as much the result of restrictive medical examinations as a commitment to welfare initiatives.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare R Medicine > RC Internal medicine |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > History Faculty of Arts > History > Centre for the History of Medicine |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Medicine, Naval, Child welfare, Anthropometry, Merchant marine -- Great Britain -- History, Merchant marine --History | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences | ||||||||
Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0022-5045 | ||||||||
Official Date: | January 2021 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 76 | ||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 53-77 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1093/jhmas/jraa054 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences following peer review. The version of record Elise Juzda Smith, Raising Boys for the Navy: Health, Welfare, and the British Sea Services, 1870-1905, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, , jraa054, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jraa054 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 21 July 2020 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 19 November 2022 | ||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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