When he was young, Gulliver was apprenticed to a noted local surgeon, or doctor, in London, and he remained in this post for four years. Then he studied "physic," or medicine, at Leyden, "knowing it would be useful in long voyages." His first post as a ship's doctor is aboard the Swallow, under Captain Abraham Pannel, and this lasts three and a half years. When he returns, he gets married and sets up a medical practice, but it fails, he says, because he would not "imitate the bad practice" of his peers. Again, he goes to sea as a ship's doctor on two more voyages, and upon his return, he tries to go into practice again, but it too fails. So, he takes "an advantageous offer" to be the ship's doctor aboard the Antelope, under Captain William Prichard. When the ship hits a rock and begins to sink, Gulliver makes it into a life boat with a few other men. The life boat is overtaken by the waves, and he believes all the other men to be lost to the sea. He swims until he can swim no more, and then he finds that he can touch bottom. He walks to the land ahead and falls quickly to sleep.
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