So, I was reading about how the uniformed public health service in turn had its origin with the Marine Hospital Service. A quick summary from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Hospital_Service
QUOTE
The Marine-Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries.
The Service was created by an act of the 5th United States Congress, which was signed into law on 16 July 1798 by President John Adams. The Act required the Department of the Treasury to "provide for the relief and maintenance of disabled seamen." This Act led to the formation of several loosely-controlled hospitals at sea and river ports all across the United States, which was officially the Marine-Hospital Fund. The Act specified the revenue for the Hospital Fund to come from the merchant seamen. Merchant seamen that used the early hospital fund hospitals were charged "20 cents per month." This series of hospitals to care for merchant seamen was based on the British practice of establishing hospitals to care for sailors and merchant seamen. The British established their first hospitals in 1588, shortly after their victory over the Spanish Armada. The Marine Hospital Fund was a unique and early mechanism to provide the first publicly-funded health care and disease prevention federal agency in the United States.
Following the Civil War, public outcry and scandal surrounded the Marine Hospital Fund. In 1869, Dr. John Shaw Billings--a prominent Army surgeon—was appointed to head an investigation of the Marine Hospital Fund. Dr. Billings found the hospital fund to be inadequate and completely unorganized. In 1871, the Marine Hospital Fund was formally reorganized as the Marine Hospital Service, under the direction of Dr. John Maynard Woodworth. Dr. Woodworth was appointed to the Service as "Supervising Surgeon." He reorganized the service into a disciplined organization based on his experience in the Union Army as a surgeon. Dr. Woodworth required his physicians to be a mobile work force stationed where the service was in need, and he mandated the daily wear uniforms. This eventually led to the creation of the modern-day Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Dr. Woodworth, using Army-style heraldry, created the Marine Hospital Service fouled anchor and caduceus seal which is used to this day by the Public Health Service. In 1873, Dr. Woodworth’s title was changed to "Supervising Surgeon General," a forerunner of the modern-day office of Surgeon General of the United States.
The Service was created by an act of the 5th United States Congress, which was signed into law on 16 July 1798 by President John Adams. The Act required the Department of the Treasury to "provide for the relief and maintenance of disabled seamen." This Act led to the formation of several loosely-controlled hospitals at sea and river ports all across the United States, which was officially the Marine-Hospital Fund. The Act specified the revenue for the Hospital Fund to come from the merchant seamen. Merchant seamen that used the early hospital fund hospitals were charged "20 cents per month." This series of hospitals to care for merchant seamen was based on the British practice of establishing hospitals to care for sailors and merchant seamen. The British established their first hospitals in 1588, shortly after their victory over the Spanish Armada. The Marine Hospital Fund was a unique and early mechanism to provide the first publicly-funded health care and disease prevention federal agency in the United States.
Following the Civil War, public outcry and scandal surrounded the Marine Hospital Fund. In 1869, Dr. John Shaw Billings--a prominent Army surgeon—was appointed to head an investigation of the Marine Hospital Fund. Dr. Billings found the hospital fund to be inadequate and completely unorganized. In 1871, the Marine Hospital Fund was formally reorganized as the Marine Hospital Service, under the direction of Dr. John Maynard Woodworth. Dr. Woodworth was appointed to the Service as "Supervising Surgeon." He reorganized the service into a disciplined organization based on his experience in the Union Army as a surgeon. Dr. Woodworth required his physicians to be a mobile work force stationed where the service was in need, and he mandated the daily wear uniforms. This eventually led to the creation of the modern-day Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Dr. Woodworth, using Army-style heraldry, created the Marine Hospital Service fouled anchor and caduceus seal which is used to this day by the Public Health Service. In 1873, Dr. Woodworth’s title was changed to "Supervising Surgeon General," a forerunner of the modern-day office of Surgeon General of the United States.
This got me thinking...what do sailors in the 1800s bring back with them to the United States? Cthulu lore, of course. They could be pale and fishy and everyone would think that they have some kind of disease.
These Marine Hospitals could be the perfect place for some Cthulu type occurences, especially if let's say the entire crew of one particular ship just returned from Pohnpei was hospitalized and quarantined in one of them. Maybe things get very strange, and then the player characters, being uniformed public health officers, are sent to investigate.
There'd be slightly less man-portable firepower in the late 1800s (before the invention of submachineguns!) so that would also contribute to making the scenario scary to investigate. Apparently smokeless powder would have at most just been invented, so if any shooting occurs it's probably going to involve blackpowder weapons, which of course have less muzzle velocity and are probably more likely to be ineffective against sanity-destorying chitinous shells or whatever you expect to encounter.
Maybe the player characters show up in a port town containing one of the hospitals, and it's all like freaking Innsmouth. Yeah.....
