Pirate law decreed that crew members would be compensated for injuries as follows:

loss of right arm 600 pieces of eight
loss of left arm 500 pieces of eight
loss of right leg 500 pieces of eight
loss of left leg 400 pieces of eight
loss of eye or finger 100 pieces of eight
loss of both legs or arms 800 pieces of eight and a slave

"The Economics of Piracy" Stephen J. Dubner

This means PIRATES had better health care coverage than modern AMERICANS!

This is, hands (hur hur i maek funny) down the best random trivia ever.

I thought they just jammed a bit of wood on the end and told you to deal with it.

that is the reason why The Flying spaghetti monster killed all the pirates...

I think they were kinda racist to the lefties.

i dunno about you guys, but i'd value my eye wayyyyyyyy more than a finger.

The hell are you talking about? I am a pirate and i'm right here, with the rest of the crew.
Killing, plundering and protecting the world from global warming and Canada.

Also, did you know that Blackbeard used to hold important people for ransom in exchange for meds for his crew?
Best insurance policy ever.

Kind of interesting, and kind of awesome - going on my random trivia list to remember and bring up in conversations. (I can just imagine it now: "... and we're going to go to my grandparents for Christmas." "Uh-huh, interesting. Did you know, pirates have better health care coverage than the average modern American? No? It's true. Pass me the chips, would you?" )


Blackbeard was awesome. You sort of have to respect a man who had hemp and burning matches woven into his beard as a hello-and-how-do-you-do.

I wonder if Captain Feathersword knows this...hmmm

It's odd how pirates have bee made to look completely disordered when they were really quite strict with their laws .
Still, I wonder why your right leg was more valuble than your left leg?

Funny no mention of Vitamin C! Gotta keep the scurvy away.

Oh Sorry i forgot that there still are 17 pirates alive.
(http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/)

ZOMG, you're totally right! Especially how they had prescription drug coverage, and low co-pay doctor's visits.

Oh no wait, all they had was a one-time payment for permanent disability. Yeah, you know what? That's actually pretty crappy health coverage. I think I'll stick with mine, where I don't have to suffer a permanent injury to actually get some help, thanks.

But you don't get a slave with your policy. :p

Personally I'm poor, and therefore have NO heath insurance of any kind. Car insurance either for that matter. Just can't afford it.

And the rum isn't quite as good.

I'll stick with ninjas, thank you

How much for loss of self-esteem?

Two wenches and a crate of rum.

uhh... tempting, but I think I'll stick with my limbs

now im kinda curious what compensation a ninja gets ...

Soundeless shoes and a rice ball.

and if its a headache, a naruuto headband. ^^

Jissai, there's an edit option for a reason.



Anything you can gather from your victims.

Lose an eye? Take it from your victims.
Lose an arm? Take it from your victims.

When injured, you got to keep whatever land and women the guy had you killed.



Not really, I'm just kind of making it up

I'll come in and be all boring and realistic now.

If I remember correctly from the self-studying I did a while back, the amount you got varied a bit from place to place, and the rules weren't always the same.
But generally you could expect a compensation for loss of limbs, and if you were too damaged to do anything else there was the position as cook available.

And before we declare all the money that much better, remember what age it was. There was no way to dull pain (exept perhaps alcohol if you were lucky) and wounds could/would get infected a lot easier. If a limb was too damaged to be patched up, it would have to go. That wasn't very nice to experience I'd imagine.

And I doubt dental care was good at all.

There, I'm done being boring now. You can go back to having fun.