Rough Medicine Life & Death in the Age of Sail Sat 3 Dec 2016 – Sun 26 Feb 2017 10:00am – 4:30pm Museum of the Great Southern Over the school holiday period the Museum of the Great Southern will be open daily from 10am – 4:30pm, except on Wednesdays when it will be open from 12pm – 7pm. Rough Medicine: Life & Death in the Age of Sail explores the fascinating history of how illness impacted upon and even shaped early sea voyages. From the 17th Century to the advent of the steamship in the late 19th Century, the exhibition delves into the immigrant voyages that are part of the histories of thousands of Australians. Sickness could render a voyage anything from uncomfortable to absolutely horrific. Disease spread rapidly in cramped quarters, drinking water was often polluted, food perished and new climates brought new ailments with few escaping a visit to the ship’s surgeon. An eye-watering array of surgical instruments features in this absorbing and sometimes confronting exhibition. Ship surgeons carried many instruments including saws to amputate limbs, a corkscrew like trephine to remove sections of skull and tooth keys to break off teeth at the root. It was recommended that every ship carried a jar of at least 50 leeches to bleed patients and rebalance the ‘humours’. Rough Medicine was developed, designed and toured by the South Australian Maritime Museum and is supported by Visions Australia. Illustration by F. Graetz, Puck magazine, 18 July 1883 Courtesy Bert Hansen Collection, New York