Assistant Surgeon in New South Wales
On arrival at Port Jackson, the surgeons had the difficult task of attending to the sick in tents while supervising the construction of emergency timber hospital huts.
By August 1788 tensions between Balmain and the principal surgeon, John White, became so great that they fought a duel with pistols in which Balmain received a small flesh wound in the right thigh. Ralph Clark commented "it would not have rested there had the governor not taken the matter in hand and convinced the two sons of Aescalipius that it was much better to draw blood with the point of their lance from the arm of their patients than to do it with pistol balls from each other."
The early settlement suffered from severe lack of food that Balmain recorded that a convict had died from 'want of sustenance' in December 1788.
When White was absent from the settlement, Balmain found himself in charge of the makeshift hospital, stocked with only rudimentary supplies, and assisted by untrained convict personnel.
The arrival of the Second Fleet in mid-1790 threw up new challenges for Balmain and the other surgeons. The treatment of the convicts had been so harsh that they were confronted with large numbers of sick and dying people, and the death rate rose alarmingly over a two month period.
In September 1790 Governor Arthur Phillip was speared in the shoulder by hostile natives at the place he named Manly, Balmain skillfully removed the broken spear which was protruding through the shoulder and dressed the wound. Henry Waterhouse described the operation: "We got up within two hours to Sydney Cove, when the surgeons were immediately sent for and Mr Balmain attended with his instruments. On his examining the wound, the governor desired him candidly to tell him how many hours he had to settle his affairs ... but Mr Balmain made us all happy by confidently assuring the governor he did not apprehend any fatal consequences from the wound. The spear was then extracted." Phillip expressed his appreciation by appointing him to the post of Surgeon to the Norfolk Island Colony.
Read more about this topic: William Balmain
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