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Captain recovered

Surgeon’s journal

On the 28th of this month, as we were lying before the ShamaGhanaFort St. Sebastian, our captain Jan Minkenveld came to me. He complained bout pain in all of his limbs and about vomiting. I found that he had a fever intermittens, sporadic fever. He asked for a doses of laxative pills as he had an aversion to taking powders.

I gave him five pills (Prescription 12) of the kind that I had given him often before, and he said that they were easy on him. Afterwards, as the vomiting and fever got worse, I prescribed another mixture (Prescription 13). I could not get him to take a emetic on my request.

Since he strongly complained about pain in his head, which in my view was caused by the fever, I also laid two bandages on his head. During the fever attacks he was delirious. I boiled a barley drink (Prescription 14) for him, of which I let him drink to his satisfaction. I continued with that till the head fortress of St. George ElminaGhanaElmina Castle, where he declared to be feeling reasonably well after having used a leaf laxative (Prescription 15).

But afterwards he relapsed into vomiting, which was accompanied by a lot of slime mixed with bile. I prescribed the earlier mentioned mixture (Prescription 13) again and also give him a big pill (Prescription 16). But since the vomiting was still persisting, I insisted that he must use an emetic from vomit root, which he did. That relieved him of much slime and bile, and he was a lot better afterwards.

I gave him a cold compress (Prescription 17) to drink, which, though he came back aboard still weak, made him recover again.