Background. The Edinburgh experience ; Medicine at sea -- From surgeon's mate to physician to the fleet. HMS Berwick ; Surgeon of a slaver ; Northumbrian interlude ; Recalled to the colours ; The Royal Hospital, Haslar ; Physician to the Channel fleet ; The conquest of scurvy ; Shore-based in Plymouth ; Honours and half-pay -- The Newcastle years. Married life and civilian practice ; An essay on drunkenness ; A war of pamphlets ; A view of the nervous temperament ; Physician as poet and playwright ; Thomas Trotter and the great theatre of life
Summary
The book outlines Trotter's education in enlightenment Edinburgh, his service in the navy, where he successfully argued for better recognition of and conditions for naval surgeons, his participation in key battles, including the Glorious First of June, and his falling out with leading Admiralty figures. It also covers his later life as a physician in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his studies and writing at this period being widely regarded as pioneering work in the field of addiction studies
