services while in the Navy was his effort to bring about the abolishment of flogging as a mode of discipline.
Captain David Porter's account of his voyage in the U.S. frigate Essex around Cape Horn and into the Pacific makes frequent mention of the three medical officers with him. The names of Surgeon Robert Miller and Surgeons Mates Alexander M. Montgomery and Richard K. Hoffman were signed to the Declaration of November 19, 1813, in which Porter took formal possession of Madison Island for the United States. This was our first island possession in the Pacific.
Not even a brief sketch of the history of the United States Naval Medical Corps would be complete without the story of Dr. Lewis Heermann, who was surgeon of the Enterprise — Decatur's ship. At the time the Bey of Tripoli was making trouble for American merchantmen, a squadron of observation sailed from Hampton Roads with orders to visit the North African ports. While the blockade of these ports was maintained, American ships used to put in at Malta, Gibraltar, Malaga, and Port Mahon on the Island of Minorca, to take on supplies, make repairs, or land sick and injured. We had temporary naval hospitals on Minorca, the record of which has vanished except in the old American sea chantey:
Off Cape de Gatte
I lost my hat,
And where do you think I found it?
In Port Mahon
Under a stone,
With all the girls around it.
During the war, the frigate Philadelphia was captured by the enemy and its officers and men held prisoners for nineteen months. One of the Philadelphia's medical officers, Dr. Jonathan Cowdery, became a favorite of the bashaw and was called in by him as obstetrician at the delivery of one of his favorite concubines.
As soon as the news of the capture of the Philadelphia became
