Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 August 21

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August 21

When did naval surgeons become doctors?

There is an assumption in the question, namely that if I walk aboard a battleship or aircraft carrier in 2023, the ship's doctor(s) will be an actual, university-educated doctor. This was not always the case: in the early 19th century, a ship's surgeon had generally learned their trade by apprenticeship and the entire Royal Navy (for example) had only a few dozen university-educated physicians in the fleet. When did this change? Dr-ziego (talk) 06:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

That was the case for surgeons generally, not just naval surgeons. According to Surgeon#History, "In Europe, surgery was mostly associated with barber-surgeons who also used their hair-cutting tools to undertake surgical procedures, often at the battlefield and also for their employers. With advances in medicine and physiology, the professions of barbers and surgeons diverged; by the 19th century barber-surgeons had virtually disappeared, and surgeons were almost invariably qualified doctors who had specialized in surgery". I can't see any specific dates though, either there or in History_of_surgery. Nor can I see anything to indicate whether naval surgery was ahead or behind other surgery in that matter. Iapetus (talk) 09:11, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

There are explicit dates to be found in College of Surgeons of England (1800 for a specific Royal Charter). The resulting social pressure must have had its influence, if you consider the case of William Beatty although he was a warranted surgeon without a medical degree at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) he was a physician with the necessary academic recognition very soon after. Interestingly, "in 1807, number of other naval surgeons and he were active in promoting the new practice of vaccination against smallpox". --Askedonty (talk) 13:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Dr-ziego -- It doesn't have anything to do with Britain or naval matters specifically, but you can look at "The Splendid Century" by W.H. Lewis (the brother of C.S. Lewis) for a rather vivid and disheartening sketch of the state of the French medical professions ca. 1700. The academic doctors were basically stuck in the Middle Ages, and almost impervious to evidence or empirical facts which were not found in ancient classical authors. They considered any form of cutting into a patient's body to be lowly tradesman's work, and completely inappropriate to their lofty social status as academicians. There were several categories of surgeons to do such work (some more educated/qualified than others), but the academic doctors did their best to make sure that no surgeons were allowed to approach their own status and privileges. I don't think that the situation in Britain was quite as calcified as in France, but Britain was influenced by some of the same traditions... AnonMoos (talk) 12:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the OP's premise is entirely correct. This review of Health and Medicine at Sea, 1700–1900, says:

Chapter two (M. John Cardwell, ‘Royal Navy Surgeons, 1793-1815: A Collective Biography’) focuses on naval surgeons by recording their backgrounds... As for their education, in the late 18th and into the early 19th century, many surgeons had practical training at medical schools. Records show that many medical officers attended such schools in London, Edinburgh and Dublin, as well as passing at the Royal College of Surgeons, before they joined the service. Even though records are scarce, the author reveals that many naval surgeons had some civilian medical practice.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

In the 1860s, such earlier apprenticed surgeons were "old salt" (Gangrene and Glory: "rough and ready medical sailor", in the U.S. so it seems people were made surgeons like so up until the 1820s or the 1830s) - perhaps less sophisticated in a way than a barber would have been. But an other interesting info from Gangrene and Glory is that the Union and the Confederacy both hierarchically had a fleet surgeon; by contrast where there was a medical director on field. --Askedonty (talk) 18:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

The concept of a Surgeon general seems tangentially related to the discussion as well. --Jayron32 12:51, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

• Isn't that the person who cuts the umbilical cord? Sorry, I'll see myself out. --Jayron32 15:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

The beginning of regulation for civilian and military physicians was the Apothecaries Act 1815 (apothecaries at that time fulfilled the role of a general practitioner), which according to this article, was born out of the deficiencies of military medical services during the Napoleonic wars. Alansplodge (talk) 18:23, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Stocks market question.

Do stocks go up when company makes money, or when they announce their quarterly earnings, and the people see the outcome is positive? If the answer is the 2nd, that seems to imply a little magic in it, which I would be inclined to deny. Heh. Thanks. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 16:31, 21 August 2023 (UTC).

Stocks go up when more people buy them than sell them. Good news certainly helps. -- 136.54.106.120 (talk) 17:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

For any trade to take place, somebody has to buy, and somebody has to sell. --Amble (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Stocks can easily go down when a company makes money. If a company expects to earn $1,000,000 in a year and actually earns $1,000, the severe shortfall in earnings is likely to worry its investors, and worried investors are typically willing to sell at lower prices. At the same time, stocks can go up when money is lost, e.g. when it expects to lose $1,000,000 and actually loses just $1,000. Nyttend (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

To be more specific, investors sell to their broker, who then combines parcels of shares as necessary to fulfil buy orders. Large orders in illiquid companies may be filled by "borrowing" shares - large investors can make money by loaning out some of their holding in return for commission. I once bought one five-hundredth of the issued capital of the company I worked for. They were taken over and the price quadrupled. Asked by another staff member what shareholders should do the managing director said "Sell." I didn't take the advice (this was at the height of the tech boom - before the buyer would complete he came in on bank holiday Monday 3 January to see whether the millennium bug had disabled the computer systems). He closed down the ballot counting arm to customer protests, leaving the only other company in the field with a monopoly, and the share price tanked. It revived after the company was itself taken over, and the new owners bought out the minority shareholders. To cut costs the office downsized to different premises. After the old building closed the managing director entered on his own, only to get stuck in the lift - luckily he had his mobile phone with him. The set-up in the new building was possibly unique - you could go up in the service lift from the street but you couldn't go down again so if the exit gate was locked you were trapped (that happened to one courier). 2A00:23D0:CDF:7701:A5E6:C3CC:1CCB:680F (talk) 09:56, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a comparison in a very old stock trading book in our collection that compares stocks to baseball cards. If people want a baseball card, it is worth more. If they don't want it, it is worth less. It is not directly based on the player's statistics. It is based solely on consumer interest. Stocks are the same. If people want a stock, it is worth more. If people don't want it, it is worth less. It is not directly based on the company's statistics. I don't think it is from Reminicinces of a Stock Operator. I scanned it already. If there is interest, I will see if I can find the correct book. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 10:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

But stocks don't know if there is a strong interest in them or not. Only if people buy/sell them or not. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 15:30, 22 August 2023 (UTC).

Stocks don't know anything. They are abstract concepts, not sentient beings. --Jayron32 15:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Baseball cards don't know anything either. That is why it is a comparison, two things that have value based on interest of buyers, which can go up and down for reasons that little to do with the thing in question. Perhaps you are claiming that the price of stocks is not based on interest in them. That would be incorrect. If people are buying a particular stock, the price will go up based on increased interest in the stock. If people lose interst and begin selling the stock, the price will go down. Per the example, if there are 100 of a particular baseball card and people are interested in purchasing it, the price will go up. If, instead, people who have it are trying to sell it, price will go down. The difference is that the valuable baseball cards have a small quantity and sell rather infrequently while stocks have large quantities and sell multiple times a day. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 17:26, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

But what I've never seen happen, is a stock staying stationary for a short period of time, even a few seconds. It's always either moving up or down. Surely there should be a period where nobody is buying and selling? Therefore the curve should remain a horizontal line? 170.76.231.162 (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2023 (UTC).

The key part of your statement is "I've never seen." Look at volume. Most stocks have a volume indication that shows how many buys and sells take place every second. It continues into aftermarket trading. There are stocks that are not popular. They are neither bought or sold. Consider stock symbol BIO.B. It is rarely traded and the stock value remains flat. Also keep in mind that just like everything else, value can change with a change in the value of the dollar. A dollar does not have constant value. It goes down over time. It can go up, but it doesn't. There is always some measure of inflation that decreases the value of the dollar. So, if we assume that a stock's true value remains constant, that value measured in dollars will require more dollars over time. Back to baseball cards, a card that was valued at $100 in 1980 should be worth well over $300 today even if the value of the card itself hasn't changed. It is because the value of the dollar changed. All of this is a time frame issue. The stock market works in microseconds. If a stock stays the same price for 20 microseconds, you wouldn't notice. The time frame is too quick. But, if the stock market worked in days, such that everyone could buy/sell one time per day, you would see the same price for 20 days, not 20 microseconds. I want to point out that a coworker angrily argued that the stock market does not check prices every microsecond. I directed her to look at interviews with the founders of Automated Trading Desk. They trained their stock trading AI to trade day to day, then changed the time frame to hourly, then every minute, then every second, and then into microseconds. It makes the same profit per trade regardless, but it makes more trades when running much faster. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 10:50, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Composers, novelists, and painters.

You got famous composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. You got famous novelists like Dickens and Shakespeare. You got famous painters like Van Gogh and Monet. Has anyone done 2 out of 3? I think to the extent the answer is, they are not that famous. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 16:48, 21 August 2023 (UTC).

Are you asking if someone has been famous for music, writing, and visual arts? It's going to be tough to define because, once you're famous in one realm, part of your fame in the second realm will feed off of the first. It's like how many entertainers are listed in Wikipedia as model/actor/writer/etc.: they became an actor after being famous as a model and then wrote a book about it. Or a song about it. Or produced a play about it. You get the idea. Polymath may be of interest to you. Matt Deres (talk) 17:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Shakespeare was not any sort of novelist, famous or otherwise. Thus Dickens is in a group of one, and you also only mention 2 painters. If your question concerns 2 out of 3, the only group of three you mention are composers. I would say that they are all equally famous, although I could mention Wagner and Vivaldi (and why not Pachelbel, famous for one single, mind-blowingly boring work?) MinorProphet (talk) 18:11, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

It sounds like you need to be gifted a copy of Pachelbel's Greatest Hit, which has 8 different renditions of the Canon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Right the number of examples is not relevant. Just wondering who is famous and has done at least 2 of the 3. Novelists/poets/playwriters as 1 category sure. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 18:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC).

William Blake, poet and painter. Or only counting novels for literary fame? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

How famous is famous? Mervyn Peake was probably better known as an artist than a writer for much of his life, but now he is much better known as a writer. Thomas Hardy was better known as a poet until quite late in his life, but his novels are far better known today. ColinFine (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Norman Lindsay is a famous name Down Under (his entire family was extraordinarily creative). He was both an artist and a novelist, some of whose written works have been made into movies (Helen Mirren had her first credited role in Age of Consent, 1969). In later life, he said that, while he was generally regarded by the public as a painter who also wrote, he considered himself a writer who also painted. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

One solid measurement of a humanities person's accomplishments is a Nobel Prize in literature. List of Nobel laureates tells us that two Nobel laureates have won two prizes in different fields, but both were scientific (Marie Curie in physics and chemistry, and Linus Pauling in chemistry and peace), and none of the literature laureates has won a second prize in literature or any other field. Nyttend (talk) 00:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Peace is scientific? --Trovatore (talk) 03:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Only one laureate (Literature) has played first-class cricket. DuncanHill (talk) 00:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

At least one physics laureate was also a professional footballer, Niels Bohr, who played goalkeeper for Akademisk Boldklub. --Jayron32 12:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

He didn't play professionally, as professionalism was introduced in Denmark only in 1978. Still top-level, and his brother even made it on the national team. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Anthony Burgess, novelist and composer. Edmund Crispin wrote film scores as Bruce Montgomery. Charles Dibdin, composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor. DuncanHill (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Then there's William Shakespeare. In his lifetime his fame, such as it was, came entirely from his acting and theatre management. After his death, a bunch of the plays his troupe performed became attributed to his own pen, but not without considerable later controversy. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, Shakespeare was already considered the leading English playwright by 1598. John M Baker (talk) 22:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Arnold Schoenberg. Jean Cocteau. Lou Harrison. --Viennese Waltz 07:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Among the German Romantics, E. T. A. Hoffmann – mostly now remembered as a writer, but also did painting and composition, so ticks all three boxes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:43, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Joni Mitchell is a composer and painter; she has painted pretty much all of her own album covers. --Jayron32 11:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Nick Cave of The Bad Seeds is a composer and novelist (and screenwriter, and actor, and has studied Art). I have read his And the Ass Saw the Angel, which I found accomplished, horrifying and funny.

Graham Parker of The Rumour, a prolific songwriter, has published a novel and some shorter fiction.

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and as a soloist has composed album and soundtrack music and has written two humorous novels, The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace (which I've read) and its sequel. He is also a former international-level fencer, a qualified airline pilot, and a documentary presenter. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 12:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

And with all that he's still not the Bruce Dickinson. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Paul Bowles, novelist and classical composer. Jim Carroll, writer and leader of a rock band; there are actually quite a few of those, including Hitonari Tsuji. Rarer is Henri Michaux, poet and visual artist. For bonus points, Tsuji and the aforementioned Jean Cocteau are also respected film directors. Can't think of anyone combining all three talents (writing, musical composition and visual arts) at a high level, however. Xuxl (talk) 14:43, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

'S. P. Somtow', also well known by his real name Somtow P. Sucharitkul, is a prolific Thai Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror writer, who is also an artist, screenwriter & director, musician, classical composer and conductor, orchestra director, opera writer and director, and via his Diploducus Press publishes reprints and original works by himself and others. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 16:50, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Diplodocus Press.^[1]  --Lambiam 22:31, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Chincha Islands War conclusion

I just spent some time reading about the Chincha Islands War, which I'd never heard of before. The article observes that Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia all declared war on Spain, and it discusses the conclusion of hostilities, but nothing is said of the diplomatic end of the war. When were peace treaties signed, or otherwise when was war un-declared? Nyttend (talk) 21:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Armistice 11 April, 1871. Peace treaties: Peru 14 April, 1879. Bolivia 21 August, 1879. Chile 12 June 1883. Ecuador 28 January 1885. Davis, William Columbus (1950). The Last Conquistadores. p. 332., fiveby(zero) 02:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I've added this information to the article. Nyttend (talk) 04:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)