can be heard to sing, Yo, ho, ho!

A pirate's life for me.

It makes for a catchy lyric.

But it was probably written by someone

who had no idea how unbelievably disgusting and disease-ridden

pirate ships really were.

Inadequate nutrition and constant exposure

made the sailors highly susceptible to illnesses

and that could find living spaces and lack of access

to clean water allowed those illnesses to spread around

the ships quickly.

Today, we're going to take a look at what hygiene

was like on pirate ships.

But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird

History Channel and let us know in the comments below what

other pirate-related topics you would like to hear about.

Arr.

Now, all handsy wash.

We've got pirate hygiene approaching.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Pirates were famous for a lot of things.

But having great dental plans wasn't one of them.

This is probably because most pirates didn't do anything

to care for the teeth.

And if they did, it was likely to be something

like chewing on a wooden stick.

They didn't invent the practice.

Such chew sticks actually date all the way back

to the ancient world and remained a fairly common means

of teeth cleaning as late as the 18th century.

Of course, finding chew sticks at sea was no easy task.

So even a pirate who was conscientious

about dental health would often go long stretches

without even the most basic oral care.

On a ship, fresh water was saved for cooking and drinking.

So when it came to bathe, your average pirate

probably just jumped into the ocean for a quick rinse.

Despite the ease, taking a bath would have

been a fairly rare endeavor.

This was for a number of reasons.

First, salt water isn't great for the skin.

And accidentally ingesting it could make a man sick.

Second, leaving the ship could be dangerous.

Pirates tended to believe in sea monsters.

And it was impossible to tell if one might be lurking

in the depths beneath the ship.

And third, pirates weren't very good swimmers.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Despite what pretty much every pirate movie ever made

would have us believe, most captains

didn't wear fancy waistcoats and breaches.

Rather, they typically dressed for comfort and practicality.

And could you blame them?

They were likely to be wearing the same clothes for months

at a time--

clothes that would be typically soaked in their own sweat

and blood and occasionally the blood of other people.

If clothes were cleaned at all, it

would be when the pirates were on land.

Even then, the wash would only be

done with water or saltwater.

Soap was unlikely to be involved.

In the 19th century, whaling was a massive industry.

Whaling ships often carried valuable resources.

And this made them common targets

for pirates and privateers.

Commercial whalers on the Azores Islands

had been processing whale blubber since the 10th century.

It was the basis for things like oil,

lubricant, and most importantly for our purposes here, soap.

Pirates likely seized blubber from the whalers

to make these items for themselves.

That being said, making your own soap from whale blubber

is not fun.

Processing the animal was incredibly

difficult. And by all accounts, smells overpoweringly awful.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Although toilets go all the way back to the 16th century,

they didn't have any on pirate ships.

Instead, they had a head, which was really

just a plank of wood with a hole cut through it

that emptied into the water below.

Why was it called the head?

Well, the plank was usually located at the bow

or the head of the ship.

Sailors called the plank by its location on the ship,

and the name stuck.

In fact, head is still a fairly common term

for a bathroom on a ship and in other locations.

Interestingly, royal navy ships had proper facilities

but only for officers.

The common sailors had heads just like the pirates.

And in bad weather, they probably

sometimes used a pot instead of the plank

and then just threw the filth overboard later.

[SPLASH]

Movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean

make the pirate life seem like non-stop adventure.

But that's just because they leave out all the cleaning.

Yep, pirates spent a great deal of their time washing

their ships inside and out.

Decks had to be scrubbed.

Repairs had to be made.

And blades and side arms had to be cleaned.

Every sailor had assigned chores to carry out.

And the work was not easy.

There was also periodic maintenance.

The same way you have to take your car in for an oil

change every so often, every few months, a pirate

would have to go find a place to careen their ship.

This refers to tilting the ship onto its side allowing

the bottom to be scraped with barnacles and mollusks.

The process prevented the ship from becoming infected

with ship worm, which are also sometimes known

as the termites of the sea.

As you might have guessed, table manners

were not a big priority for pirates.

The famous Captain George Roberts

once described a pirate crew he witnessed

at a meal as "like a Kennel of Hounds,"

snatching and catching the victuals from one another.

On a ship, foodstuffs had to be resistant to spoiling.

So the selection tended to be pretty basic.

Dried meats, hard tack, and alcohol were common.

But they didn't exactly constitute a balanced diet.

Therefore, pirates frequently supplemented

those staples with turtles, birds,

and whatever other protein sources they might happen upon.

A wide variety of items, including garlic, olives, eggs,

cabbage, fish, oysters, and even snakes

might be thrown together in a stew.

Seasoning and spices were also likely to be

included in the mix.

But they weren't always readily available.

The sum total of all this was a diet

mostly lacking in nutrients, particularly vitamin C.

This led to outbreaks of scurvy.

And the effects were extreme.

A sea surgeon named William Clowes wrote that "The gums

would be 'rotted even to the very roots of their very

teeth,' the cheeks become 'hard and swollen,' the breath would

become pungent and finally the teeth would loosen and fall

out."

Well, isn't that a nice visual?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

On pirate ships and nonpirate ships

alike, scurvy was common for centuries.

By some estimates, upwards of 2 million sailors

died of scurvy between the 15th and 18th centuries alone.

An unknown surgeon on a 16th century English ship

recorded his own symptoms after contracting the disease.

He described rotted gums, which gave out

black and putrid blood, and legs that

turned black and gangrenous.

It was so bad, he was forced to cut away his own skin in order

to release this black and foul blood.

He also apparently had to cut his gums, which

he described as livid and growing over his teeth.

When he pulled away the decaying flesh,

black blood flowed from his mouth.

And if you think the story can't get any worse,

then brace yourself, because the next thing he did

was rinse his mouth and teeth with the closest thing he

had to antiseptic at the time--

his own urine.

Mm.

Did you hear that?

Somewhere, R. Kelly just like this video.

Anyway, scurvy was bad.

But at least it was possible to recover from it.

The same couldn't always be said of other conditions,

like dysentery.

Fluxes and fevers were also common on account

of the putrid water, close borders,

and a general lack of hygiene.

Pirating was incredibly risky.

So ships had to be prepared to deal

with all sorts of medical emergencies.

To this end, some pirate crews carried their own surgeons.

The services of these professionals

were often procured by force.

Failing that, novices might be tasked with learning

surgical procedures.

One such ship's surgeon was John Devin who

worked for the infamous Captain Henry Every.

He stayed on with Every even after he was officially

proclaimed a pirate by the English Privy Council in 1696.

Two years after that, Devin himself

will be tried for piracy and acquitted.

Archibald Murray was a ship's surgeon

who served three different pirate

captains starting with Captain Howell Davis in 1718.

In 1723, Cole Wyeth was the surgeon

on a ship that was commandeered by the pirate Edward Low.

Wyatt served under Low and then continued

on after the ship was taken back by its original captain.

In 1717, the notorious Edward Teach

also known as "Blackbeard" seized

a ship called La Concorde, which he would famously

rename Queen Anne's Revenge.

It carried three surgeons whom Blackbeard kept as captives.

They were presumably still aboard the ship a year later

when he attacked Charleston, South Carolina.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's not clear how often pirates shaved their faces.

But there is evidence that the surgeons on pirate ships

may have double as barbers.

Surgery often requires shaving an area of the body, which

would give the surgeon experience with using

the razor on a ship that rocks and sways

with the motion of the sea.

A 17th century treatise called The Surgeon's Mate even

described ship surgeons who had multiple razors

and scissors of various sizes precisely

so he could give haircuts.

Being a pirate was a dangerous way to make a living.

Accidents, brawls, and battles were all common and likely

to result in wounds, burns, illnesses, and all other manner

of medical problems.

As such, a pirate ship typically had a medicine chest,

which would contain salve, ointments, and instruments

for performing surgery, like amputations.

When the wreck of Blackbeard's famous ship Queen Anne's

Revenge was found off the coast of North Carolina,

its medicine chest still contained

scissors, mortars and pestles for preparing ingredients,

as well as screws that were likely used for bloodletting.

According to the famous albeit dubious textbook, The General

History of the Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson,

Blackbeard acquired these medical supplies via extortion.

The book claims that the legendary pirate attacked

every ship in Charleston, South Carolina

until the government finally agreed to give him

the medical supplies he needed.

Diseases, like syphilis were common at sea.

And when Blackbeard's medicine chest was unearthed,

one of the instruments found inside

was a urethral syringe used to treat that condition.

Fever, smallpox, and measles were also

fairly routine conditions.

Insects and vermin were everywhere.

John Esquemeling from Henry Morgan's late 17th century ship

recorded gnats of various sizes, including

ones that exceed not the bigness of a grain of mustard and bite

so sharply upon the flesh as to create little ulcers therein.

As fun as that sounds, it was just the beginning.

Lice, fleas, rats, and even bees could infest ships.

In such cases, health professionals of the time

were prone to recommend fumigation.