Early sea trade and health

The new regulatory measures to help protect the health of seamen developed in the 1860s have to be seen in the light of many centuries of concern, and occasionally action, to safeguard their health and fitness. The dangers of seafaring have been recorded since the dawn of history, as witnessed by biblical references and texts from the ancient world. Shipwreck and drowning predominated in early sources but the illness and injury risks to ‘they that go down to the sea in ships’ must have been known from an early date. Maritime law has similarly ancient roots. The Lex Rhodia, which covers topics such as the liability for loss if cargo is thrown overboard in a storm to reduce the risk of the ship foundering, dates from 800 BCE, although only fragments remain. By the early medieval period several codes of law made provision for illness among crewmembers. The ones that most directly affected English ships from this time onwards were the Rules of Oleron.

Oleron is an island off Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast of France. Around 1160 a set of laws were developed there that applied to ships trading in the region. Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was by turns queen of France and of England, is said to have had them modelled on a code used by the kingdom of Jerusalem, which she visited as consort to the King of France during the second crusade.