Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

specimens, clothes etc. and there was little time for anything else; in the evening I
was typing out lists. Next day I was kept busy packing specimens, chemicals and
equipment to go to South Georgia. I got John to pack the clothing etc.
On 22 January l950, with the ship imminently expected, I made a pontoon landing
stage with Charlie's help, and Derek later helped to lash it up. This took most of the
day and later we floated it at high tide - it appeared to be quite satisfactory.
I have tried in this section to give a rough idea of how we spent our time, apart
from our specialist duties, by giving examples of how typical days passed.
Health and medical problems: We were all pretty fit. Seals' wounds suppurated very
badly and we were always very careful after killing and cutting up seals to attend
to any cuts or scratches immediately. Of course when a ship called we all went
down with fierce colds within a very short time. Cold germs in the normal course
of affairs are absent and the Antarctic is a very healthy place - one can get very
wet, frozen and miserable without any chance of catching a cold - the germs just
seemed not to survive the low temperatures. But germs were present in straw or
other packing, which insulated them from the cold. When cold germs were
introduced, as by the arrival of a ship, or on opening a bale of clothing or pickle
jars in sawdust, everyone caught cold automatically. Over one winter period of
several days, I was checking and restacking the stores in the Nissen hut and
unfortunately caught a violent cold from opening the crates containing packing
material or boxes of clothing. And as one lost one's resistance to colds down there,
they were easily picked up in these circumstances. This occasionally occurred at
other times when engaged on similar activities and we were all affected in this
way. Another recurring condition we all suffered from at times was piles, caused
by sitting for too long on cold rock or ice! Uncomfortable but fortunately not
serious.
Beforehand, as Base Leader, I had been given virtually no training in medical
or dental matters. There had been some discussion of a few possible major
problems, for example how to deal with a case of suspected appendicitis (“the
patient should rest on his back in bed with knees up and be given plenty of fluids;
hopefully he will recover”), snow blindness, frostbite or simple fractures. We had
a limited supply of vitamin pills and few medicines; there were some ampoules of
‘Omnopon’, a powerful painkiller, cocaine lamellae for snow blindness and so on.
There were various bandages, dressings and antiseptic preparations and we had a
heavy unwieldy stretcher, really quite out of place there.
For dentistry there was a Submarine Dental Kit in a splendid mahogany box,
including an array of fearsome pincers, probes and other instruments; there was
oil of cloves and temporary packing for cavities that lost their fillings - a common
event in our cold climate. I had little idea of how to use them and because of the
uncertain radio communications we couldn't be sure of getting advice from a
doctor in an emergency.
I suppose that dental problems were chronic, as the fillings contracted and
dislodged themselves in the cold, but we had few other problems. My first case
was when Derek gashed a finger rather badly with the pick-axe when digging out
a sack of coal; I dressed it with ‘triple-dye’. Ralph pranged his left foot on a nail
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