In 1886 I passed my examinations and duly became a member of the College of Physicians and of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; and sought some field for change and rest, where also I could use my newly acquired license to my own, if to no one else's, benefit. Among the patients who came to the London Hospital, there were now and again fishermen from the large fishing fleets of the North Sea. They lived out, as it were, on floating villages, sending their fish to market every day by fast cutters. Every two or three months, as their turn came round, a vessel would leave for the home port on the east coast, being permitted, or supposed to be permitted, a day at home for each full week at sea. As the fleets kept the sea summer and winter and the boats were small, not averaging over sixty tons, it was a hazardous calling. The North Sea is nowhere deeper than thirty fathoms, much of it being under twenty, and in some places only five. Indeed, it is a recently sunken and still sinking portion of Europe, so much so that the coasts on both sides are constantly receding, and when Heligoland was handed over by the English to the Kaiser, it was said that he would have to keep jacking it up or soon there would be none left. Shallow waters exposed to the fierce gales which sweep the German Ocean make deep and dangerous seas, which readily break and wash the decks of craft with low freeboard, such as the North Sea vessels are obliged to have in order to get boats in and out to ferry their fish to the cutter. There being no skilled aid at hand, the quickest way to get help used to be to send an injured man to market with the fish. Often it was a long journey of many days, simple fractures became compound, and limbs and faculties were often thus lost. It so happened that Sir Frederick Treves had himself a love for navigating in small sailing craft. He had made it a practice to cross the English Channel to Calais in a sailing lugger every Boxing Day--that is, the day after Christmas. He was especially interested in those "that go down to the sea in ships" and had recently made a trip among the fishing fleets. He told me that a small body of men, interested in the religious and social welfare of the deep-sea fishermen, had chartered a small fishing smack, sent her out among the fishermen to hold religious services of a simple, unconventional type, in order to afford the men an alternative to the grog vessels when fishing was slack, and to carry first aid, the skipper of the vessel being taught ambulance work. They wanted, however, very much to get a young doctor to go out, who cared also for the spiritual side of the work, to see if they could use the additional attraction of proper medical aid to gain the men's sympathies. His advice to me was to go and have a look at it. "If you go in January you will see some fine seascapes, anyhow. Don't go in summer when all of the old ladies go for a rest."