that took him off = that led to his death?

I'd say so, yes.

　　Thanks

PS. What is "the powder?" The powder in the doctor's face?

Context:
observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and pleasant manners

Remember, Treasure Island was a Historical novel when it was written. It is set in Georgian times, it was the fashion then, amongst the gentry, to shave their heads, and wear wigs. This would stop the spread of lice. The powder is wig powder. The following is from Wikipedia.

In the 18th century, men's wigs were powdered in order to give them their distinctive white or off-white color. Contrary to popular belief, women in the 18th century did not wear wigs, but wore a coiffure supplemented by artificial hair or hair from other sources. Women mainly powdered their hair grey, or blue-ish grey, and from the 1770s onwards never bright white like men. Wig powder was made from finely ground starch that was scented with orange flower, lavender, or orris root. Wig powder was occasionally colored violet, blue, pink or yellow, but was most often used as off-white. Powdered wigs (men) and powdered natural hair with supplemental hairpieces (women) became an essential for full dress occasions and continued in use until almost the end of the 18th century. The elaborate form of wigs worn at the coronation of George III in 1761 was lampooned by William Hogarth in his engraving Five Orders of Periwigs. Powdering wigs and extensions were messy and inconvenient, and the development of the naturally white or off-white powderless wig (made of horsehair) for men is no doubt what has made the retention of wigs in everyday court dress a practical possibility. By the 1780s, young men were setting a fashion trend by lightly powdering their natural hair, as women had already done from the 1770s onwards. After 1790, both wigs and powder were reserved for older, more conservative men, and were in use by ladies being presented at court. After 1790 English women hardly powdered their hair anymore. In 1795, the British government levied a tax on hair powder of one guinea per year. This tax effectively caused the demise of both the fashion for wigs and powder. Granville Leveson-Gower, in Paris during the winter of 1796, noted "The word citoyen seemed but very little in use, and hair powder being very common, the appearance of the people was less democratic than in England."[2]


Marie Antoinette wearing the distinctive pouf style coiffure: her own natural hair is extended on the top with an artificial hairpiece.Among women in the French court of Versailles in the mid-to-late 18th century, large, elaborate and often themed wigs (such as the stereotypical "boat poufs") were in vogue for women. These combed-up hair extensions were often very heavy, weighted down with pomades, powders, and other ornamentation. In the late 18th century these coiffures (along with many other indulgences in court life) became symbolic of the decadence of the French nobility, which helped to fuel the French Revolution[citation needed] (although its influence is exaggerated).

During the 18th century, men's wigs became smaller and more formal with several professions adopting them as part of their official costumes. This tradition survives in a few legal systems. They are routinely worn in various countries of the Commonwealth. Until 1823, bishops of the Church of England and Church of Ireland wore ceremonial wigs. The wigs worn by barristers are in the style favoured in the late eighteenth century. Judges' wigs are, in everyday use as court dress, short like barristers' wigs (although in a slightly different style) but for ceremonial occasions judges and also senior barristers (QCs) wear full-bottomed wigs.[citation needed

The doctor may have been powdering his own hair, but what Izzy has suggested is more likely.

Thank you both

Thank you for your faith in me Set, I'm very familiar with this particular novel, having taught it on quite a few occasions. Later on in the novel Jim is sat with Squire Trelawney, and Dr Livesey, who have both removed their wigs, revealing their shaved pates.

I recently re-read Treasure Island and Kidnapped, as well as reading The Black Arrow for the first time (picked up a volume with all three in a used book store). It lead me to the conclusion that Stevenson is a much over-rated author. I also recently re-read Ivanhoe and came to the same conclusion about Scott. Neither of them come even close to the artistic and expressive skill of Austen and Eliot, Dickens and Hardy. I rate them even below a hack like Anthony Trollope. I've also recently re-read Vanity Fair and came to the conclusion that Thackery, although not a great literary artist, ranks with Austen and Eliot and Hardy in his sharp wisdom about people and human nature.

Treasure Island is a kid's book. Jeckyll & Hyde is very enjoyable. I never liked Austen, despite her being a local lass. I had to study Tess in depth for A level, and I loathed it, and have never looked at anything Hardy wrote since. Eliot, Thackery and Dickens are good though.

Austen, like most authors, improved with experience. That does not lessen, however, the biting quality of her satire from the beginning. In Sense and Sensibility, she describes a dinner party attended by the heroine and her elder sister, and describes the scene when the gentlemen join the ladies in the withdrawing room:

John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable- want of sense, either natural or improved- want of elegance- want of spirits- or want of temper.

That passage is pure descriptive genius, and in particular, the emphasized phrase made me laugh aloud when i read it.

Persuasion shows a promise sadly cut short by her death at what we would think of as a young age.

As for Tess of the d'Urbervilles, i don't blame you. It's certainly not his best work, and it was more a novel of his age than a timeless work. Jude the Obscure is one such work which i would call timeless--it has a thematic appeal which transcends the Victorian, and the slow wasting death of the class system. If for no other reason, Hardy deserves to be listed among the great authors in this language because of his great skill in its use, and his ability to, in a few bold strokes, portray horror, poignancy, despair--any number of facets of the human condition.

I've read everything that Dickens ever wrote, including The Mystery of Edwin Drood (i told myself that i wouldn't be upset that it hadn't been finished, but i was)--with the sole exception of David Copperfield. I had been forced to read passages of it in school, and ever after retained an unconquerable aversion to even looking into the book.

I know what you're saying re Austen. I still think Wodehouse did it better.

re Izzy:

You rock, Plum.

Wodehouse isn't a patch on Austen when it comes to the quality of the writing. I like his golf stories, though. I can do without Bertie and Jeeves.

That's not another testicle ref is it?

Probably not, but he does make me laugh.

Do you refer to Bertie Wooster, or his other work?

Bertie, but I like his other stuff as well.

Izzy, I'm surprised at you. Even I, a rude Colonial, know that "Plum" was P.G. Wodehouse;s nickname, from a quick, slurred-a-bit pronunciation of "Pelham". No testicles involved. Austen is too mannered for my taste, Wodehouse is much more anarchic. They were doing far different things with their writing, with utterly different use of language. Saying one is better than the other is like saying an apple is better than a light bulbs.

You may be surprised, but ever since I posted a Buster Gonad strip, people have been involved testiculartory wisecracking , my avatars propensity to use the word bollocks a lot hasn't helped either. I'm just a little paranoid about anything scrotally related, that's all.

An apple IS better than a light bulb.