dealing with them or, better still, of letting their shipmates deal with them.
A man in the black gang came several times to the sick bay, complaining of heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion is something our engine-room gangs used to suffer from a great deal. However, the discovery that the exhaustion was due to loss of salt from the body from sweat and that supplying salt tablets at the drinking fountains used by the men would make up this loss has made cases of heat prostration rarer in the Navy than in industry ashore.
There was no real reason why this particular oiler, who drank the salted water, should be overcome. It was clear that he was looking for a way of loafing. The medical officer gave orders that he would have to be acclimatized gradually to the heat of the engine room. He ordered him to sit there during his watch without working. It was extraordinary how soon the man reported himself recovered of his weakness and able to carry on with the rest of the gang.
The young medical officer usually has a tendency to transfer more cases than necessary to the hospital ship, or to naval hospitals ashore. He brings with him from civil life ideas of absolute quiet, "milk diets," and the need for a large, inexhaustible, and varied supply of drugs. However, as he becomes accustomed to naval life, he also becomes accustomed to the use of a small but carefully selected collection of medicines. His "milk diet" consists of evaporated milk from cans, or milk soups. He discovers that noise does not seem to have much effect on the bluejacket. A convalescent from appendicitis will sleep through the firing of a salvo of twelve-inch guns from the deck over him and not show a rise in temperature of even one tenth of a degree.
Suppose we follow the Navy doctor on some of his duties outside the sick bay. One of the first of these is to see that the ship's galleys and the quarters of the crew are clean at all times. This brings me to a story which occurred aboard one of our battleships.
The ship had been in yard overhaul for many months and as a
