In the days when Britannia ruled the waves, Royal Navy doctors revived drowning men with tobacco smoke, treated scorpion stings with rum and advised sailors to gargle with sulphuric acid to combat scurvy. Medical methods used at sea in the 18th and 19th centuries paint a gruesome picture of life on board overcrowded ships, with sailors bitten by sharks and spiders, struck by lightning and laid low by venereal disease.
In one incident in 1802, surgeon Ben Lara, sailing the English Channel on HMS Princess Royal, was called to help a man who had fallen overboard and been under water for 12 minutes. To revive him, the sailor was stripped, wrapped in hot water bottles and "tobacco smoke was conveyed to his lungs." After an hour, the doctor found a pulse and declared it a success.
Another journal from a doctor on board HMS Arab in 1799-1800, making its way from Europe to the West Indies, stated that a scorpion sting nearly paralyzed a sailor. He was revived by "application of rum to the part." Another man bitten by a tarantula received some "rum and oil." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100930/od_nm/us_britain_navy_archives_odd)