Treatment of Head Wounds/Concussion in 1850s

but likely no formal medical training, which I believe would not have included concussion anyway, from what I have seen in the past on medicine researches. The concussion was recognized back as far as the Greeks, but no real understanding of effective special treatment is mentioned.

They'd have treated it, probably by cleaning any wound, and cold compresses. Aftermath of a concussion would have been observed rather than treated. They certainly would have no dedicated equipment or drugs to utilize.

Outside of the medical community, as primitive as it was, probably the most recognition would be that bloke was still a bit daft from being knocked on the bean.

So I asked one of my nurse friends, who collects medical quarkery this question. She said the best thing someone in the 1850's could have done is wrap their head in a bandage and keep them in bed. Hand washing, and even equipment cleaning didn't come into routine existence in American until after the Civil War.

Well what else could be done anyway, short of major surgery? They probably wouldn't even have any ice on board unless they were in arctic waters anyway.

Maturin in the O'Brian series famously performs a trepining operation to relieve the pressure of a depressed fracture, so that kind of thing was presumably well understood at the time. But of course such an involved and dangerous operation would require a physician's intervention, not likely to be found on a whaler. An ordinary ship's surgeon would probably have no skills to offer at all.

For pain, though, they might well have laudanum or some other form of opium, which would be a poor choice of medicine for a serious concussion, but would I suppose not do much harm if the injury was merely painful and not actually dangerous. In the absence of an opiate, they'd probably let the victim drink himself to sleep, which would be just as dangerous if it was a serious concussion, but par for the course otherwise.