Loblolly boy

A loblolly boy on a warship was an assistant to the ship's surgeon. In Tobias Smollett's 1748 novel The Adventures of Roderick Random, the first to describe Royal Navy life in detail, the protagonist Random was made a loblolly boy upon entering the Royal Navy, and ultimately received his warrant as a surgeon's mate. Loblolly boys also appear in C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels, Alexander Kent's "Midshipman Bolitho" novels, and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Stephen Maturin's loblolly boy, Padeen, features in several of O'Brian's books.