Fascinating Facts about Scurvy

[chuckro]

Did you know that the British discovered the cure to scurvy, then lost it and had to rediscover it? I knew none of this!

Comments

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Awesome piece.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

We tend to think that knowledge, once acquired, is something permanent. Instead, even holding on to it requires constant, careful effort.
How very true.

I had not heard this particular tale before, but the struggle to conquer scurvy I think is one of the more fascinating scientific quests. Because, as they point out, once you have the correct theory, the answer is so simple that we can spray it onto breakfast cereals and mix it into drinks and hardly even think about it. But without that theory, the data were so bafflingly complicated, it's a marvel we ever figured it out.

Early on it was thought to be a communicable disease, spread by vapors, like the plague, since it seemed to strike an entire village all at once. I've even heard of a group of British soldiers who were besieged in India. They took what they thought was the best food--including citrus fruits--for themselves, and let their Indian servants have what they considered the worse food, rice and beans. The result? All the Indians got scurvy, and all the Brits got kwashiorkor (protein deficiency). If they'd just shared food, they'd've all been fine.

I have a book on the history of Scurvy, if you are further interested.

[beastin.livejournal.com]

Fascinating indeed.

Though I can't help but think that a few controlled trials would have cleared this all up. They knew that a dramatic reduction in scurvy had occurred when the British instituted the lemon policy, so they had several obvious possible cures to test.