WEBVTT - Scurvy 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.880 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.920 I'm Tracy fee Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This episode 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.280 is the last episode I am writing for the year. 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:27.760 It's been a year. Hooray, Yeah, hooray. Also, I've just 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.840 I've had minimal contact with anybody besides my spouse in 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.640 almost nine months, and for some reason, my brain keeps 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:40.840 being like scurvy and that connection doesn't make sense really, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.519 because if I were to get a vitamin deficiency because 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.600 of the pandemic, it would probably be about vitamin D 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.440 from the not going out into the sun. Is that 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:54.640 what you're saying is that your brain is making a 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:59.120 weird jump of concern of vitamin deficiency. Maybe not concerned, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.440 but maybe more like at least they don't have scurvy, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:07.120 like huh, But brain, that doesn't make any sense anyway. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.360 That's what we're going to talk about today, is scurvy 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.160 because just for some weird reason, my brain keeps coming 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.080 back around to it in these times of winter and pandemic. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.600 So scurvy, in case you don't know, and you probably do, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.160 is a deficiency in vitamin c or asorbic acid, and 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.200 its story goes way way back in history, all the 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.720 way to our evolutionary ancestors living more than sixty million 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.760 years ago, and with a few exceptions including guinea pigs 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.760 and bats, most mammals can generate their own asorbic acid, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.520 and that included those primate ancestors. But somewhere along the way, 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.400 a random genetic mutation broke the ability to produce an 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.680 enzyme known as l galuno lactone oxidase or GULO, which 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.320 is a necessary part of making a sorbic acid. A 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.560 sorbic acid is also necessary the body uses it to 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.600 send the size the protein collagen, and collagen is a 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.920 crucially important part of our connective tissue. We needed to 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:10.079 do really important things like hold our skin and blood 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:14.680 vessels together. So if the body cannot replace worn out collagen, 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:20.399 it causes serious problems. The first symptoms of scurvy involve fatigue, lethargy, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:25.560 and aching joints. People start to bruise easily, wounds won't heal, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:29.840 and old wounds reopen. The gums start to bleed, and 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.520 the teeth start to loosen and can in fact come 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.919 out entirely. This is also accompanied by foul odors, including 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.480 very bad breath. Without treatment with vitamin C, scurvy is 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.200 eventually fatal, often because of acute internal bleeding around the 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:50.160 brain or heart. But when our ancestors stopped being able 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.240 to produce gulo, this really did not matter. They were 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.520 living in tropical areas and their diets included lots of 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.440 fresh fruits and vegetables, so they were getting ncy of 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.600 vitamin C through their food. If this had not been 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.600 through this genetic mutation that shut off the ability to 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.040 synthesize ghulu would have wiped them out, but since their 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.400 diets were rich with vitamin C, they continued to thrive. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.760 As people started living farther from tropical areas, they started 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.640 eating more foods that did not necessarily contain as much 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.360 vitamin C, but most of the time this was still 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.919 not a big problem. Most dietary recommendations call for significantly 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.080 more vitamin C, but it doesn't actually take that much 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.400 just to prevent scurvy, only about ten milligrams a day 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.560 or all you need, and although vitamin C is mostly 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.320 associated with fruits and vegetables, it is found in other 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.680 foods as well. Most meat contains a little if it 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.760 hasn't been cooked too long, and liver and kidney meat 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.840 in particular contained quite a bit of it. So, as 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.840 one example, the practice of eating raw organ meat in 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:57.640 far northern indigenous communities provides protection from scurvy even when 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.680 plant based foods are unavailable or out of season. So 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.320 as communities established themselves around the world, people had to 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.480 have some kind of vitamin C in their diets, otherwise 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.560 that community just could not survive. But anytime that access 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.520 to food was cut off in some way, say because 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.120 of a war or a famine, people could start to 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.520 develop scurvy. And this was also true for people with 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.880 diseases and conditions that kept them from eating or kept 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.080 them from absorbing the nutrients and their food. And the 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.440 word scurvy comes from older terms that mean lazy, scabbed, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.559 or scurf, which used to be used to describe dandruff. 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.719 People started using it to describe this disease in about 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.440 the sixteenth century, but written descriptions of scurvy that predate 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.200 that word are much older. The earliest likely description of 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.719 scurvy is found in the Egyptian document known as the 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.160 Ebers Papyrus, which dates back to about fift b c E. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:00.359 Past podcast subject for Shrewda described a condition involving leading 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.280 gums and loosening teeth around eight hundred BC. Roughly four 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:10.440 hundred years later, Greek physician Hippocrates described what was probably scurvy, 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.800 and while he did not go into detail about the 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.600 cure he knew for it, he did note that it 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:20.840 wasn't effective and that patients usually died. Traditional Chinese medicine 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.920 texts described collections of symptoms that very much resemble scurvy 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.720 as well. So today scurvy is associated with long sea 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.000 voyages and his humanity took to the sea. People worked 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.600 out some ways to prevent it, although really without necessarily 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.800 knowing that that was what they were doing. Many of 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.200 the earliest seafarers stuck close to the coasts or the 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.560 island hopped, and that gave them plenty of opportunities to 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.320 stock up on fresh food. But his voyages got longer, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.240 many also had foods on board that were rich in 0:05:53.360 --> 0:06:00.000 vitamin C. It's possible that Polynesian wayfinders introduced sweet potatoes 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.119 to Central and South America. They would have brought them 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.080 with them over thousands of miles of ocean and sweet 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:12.240 potatoes contained vitamin C. Scandinavians stocked their ships with cloud berries, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.160 which have about four times as much vitamin C as 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.840 oranges do. Unpasteurized milk also contains vitamin C, so seafarers 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.080 who had dairy animals on board could get it that way. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.440 While scurvy was common enough to be documented in ancient 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.800 medical literature, one of the first specifically documented outbreaks happened 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.200 in the thirteenth century during the Eighth Crusade, King Louis 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.640 the ninth lay siege to Tunis. Although there were plenty 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.320 of fresh fruits and vegetables available in the area, the 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.720 king and his fighting force were mostly eating fish, and 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.960 many were also undertaking religious fasts. The king and about 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.599 a sixth of his men died of disease during the siege. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.480 For a long time, their deaths were attributed to plague, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.760 but more recent research has found evidence of scurvy in 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.760 the king's jawbone. Not long after this, scurvy started to 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:08.359 become a serious problem on European ships during long sea voyages, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.480 and most of the literature that's related to scurvy in 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.840 history today is focused primarily on Europe and its colonies, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.680 mostly during the Age of Exploration, which was from about 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.520 the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. But of course Europeans 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.920 were not the only people taking to the sea at 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.680 this point. It's possible that other nations aren't as represented 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.800 in English language literature because of language barriers or prejudice, 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.840 but it's also possible that scurvy was just not as 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.760 much of a problem outside of European fleets. Most of 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.680 the time, it takes between two months and twelve weeks 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.320 without vitamin C for a person to develop scurvy, and 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.480 while sailors from parts of Africa and Asia were taking 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.400 voyages that lasted much longer than that, overall, often they 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.360 were not going that long between stops to resupply. It 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.320 also seems like they may have been doing a better 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.440 job at providing their crews with foods rich in vitamin C. 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.640 Past podcast subject Ibn Batuta, who was from what's now 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:12.080 Morocco and traveled extensively during the fourteenth century, described green 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:16.640 vegetables and ginger being grown in tanks on Chinese vessels. 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.480 He also wrote about salted ginger, pepper, lemons, and mangoes 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.800 being loaded onto ships in preparation for long voyages. Another 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.400 previous podcast subject is Jungha, who led fleets of treasure 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.800 ships from China all the way to Africa in the 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.360 fifteenth century, and we don't have lists of exactly what 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.320 provisions he took, but we do know that his fleets 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.040 included huge supply vessels whose whole purpose was sustaining the 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.880 voyage itself, and that the ships had kitchens that prepared 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.720 meals for crews and passengers. There are also multiple references 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.040 to Tea in relation to his voyages, and t does 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.040 contain some vitamin C. For the most part, written records 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.640 of scurvy on Chinese vessel don't really start until the 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.800 nineteenth century, when people left China bound for California during 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.400 the Gold Rush. But European ships were another story. Especially 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.400 as European ships crossed whole oceans. People's diets were often 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:19.079 restricted to salted meat and hardtack and not much else. Typically, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:24.439 any vegetables grown on board were only for the officers. Consequently, 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.920 it's estimated that scurvy killed two million European sailors between 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.080 the fifteenth century and the nineteenth century, which is when 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.000 navies started to more consistently connect scurvy prevention to things 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.319 like citrus juice. During these centuries, scurvy was the leading 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.040 cause of death amongst sailors at sea. It was also 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.440 a major cause of death among enslaved Africans during the 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.800 Transatlantic slave trade, although the details of that aspect have 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:57.480 not been nearly as specifically documented as with ship's crews. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.920 And we're going to talk about some more specific scurvy 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:12.319 information after we first paused for a little sponsor break. Today, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.600 scurvy is treated almost like a punchline in pirate jokes, 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.440 but it was an enormous problem for hundreds of years. 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.160 Scurvy killed a hundred of the original hundred and seventy 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.679 crew during Vasco da Gama's voyage to the Indian subcontinent 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.440 that started in fourte for Nan Magellan left Spain with 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.120 a fleet of five ships in fifteen nineteen, searching for 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.080 a way to reach Asia from Europe by traveling west 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.640 by sea. Only eighteen of his original crew of two 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.120 hundred and seventy made it back to Spain in two 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.959 with scurvy being a major cause of death. Here is 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:57.240 how one of Magellan's crew described conditions in his journal quote, 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.800 we ain't only old biscuit, reduced to outer and full 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.680 of grubs and stinking from the dirt which the rats 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.320 had made on it when eating the good biscuit, And 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.600 we drank water that was yellow and stinking. The men 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.200 were so hungry that if any of them caught a rat, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.679 he could sell it for a high price to someone 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.880 who would eat it. In fifteen thirty five, French explorer 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.480 Jacques Cartier established a fort across the St. Charles River 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.320 from the Iroquois village of Staticona that's near what's now 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:32.240 Quebec City. That winter was extremely harsh. Cardier's ships became 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.160 ice bound. They were not able to return to France's 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.000 planned and when they heard of an illness that was 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.800 spreading through the indigenous population, they tried to cut off 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.040 contact with them, But then that same illness started to 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:48.280 spread through Cardier's own men. In an account translated by 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.160 Richard Hacklett, it's described as this quote. Some did lose 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.120 their strength and could not stand on their feet. Then 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.360 did their legs swell, their sinews shrink as black as 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.440 any coal. Others also had all their skins spotted with 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.000 spots of blood of a purple color. Then did ascend 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.640 up to their ankles, knees, thighs, shoulders, arms, and neck. 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.040 Their mouth became stinking, their gums so rotten that all 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.600 the flesh did fall off, even to the roots of 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.400 the teeth, which also all fall out. About the middle 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.720 of February, of a hundreds and ten persons that we were, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.199 there were not ten whole. There were already eight dead, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.640 and more than fifty six, and as we saw it 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.960 passed all hope of recovery. So at some point Cardier 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.680 went for a walk and encountered Domagaya, who was the 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.880 son of Don Kona, who was the chief of Staticona. 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.120 Domagaya to hold Cardier about a treatment for this disease, 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.600 which was to prepare a tea from the leaves of 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.959 a local tree. This tree is not conclusively identified today, 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.079 but the most likely candidate is the eastern white cedar, 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.560 whose leaves always contained some vitamin cy but have a 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.280 whole lot more of it in the new growth that 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.760 comes out in the early spring. Although at least twenty 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.040 five men in the fort died of scurvy, this cure 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.920 was effective for the ones who survived. There is a course, 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.360 of course, a whole lot more to this story outside 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.960 the part about scurvy, Cartier had actually abducted Domagaya and 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:21.600 his brother on his earlier voyage and forced them to 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.720 accompany him back to France, bringing them back to North 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.599 America with him in fifteen thirty five, and at the 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.440 end of his second voyage, Cartier abducted them for a 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.640 second time, along with their father and seven other indigenous people. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.040 All but one of them died before Cardier returned to 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.679 North America for his third voyage. In Probably the most 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.800 dramatic and notorious outbreak of scurvy at sea was during 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.480 George Anson's four year voyage around the world, which started 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.920 in seventeen forty. Britain was at war with Spain, and 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.280 because of the war, Anson had a serious labor shortage. 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.559 Even press gangs, who were abducting men off the street 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.160 to force them to serve in the Royal Navy could 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.040 not provide him with enough men for his fleet. Eventually, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.880 this gap was filled with men from Chelsea Hospital, most 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.200 of whom were sick, injured, or elderly to the point 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.120 that they weren't able to just leave on their own 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.160 when they got released from the hospital. The people who 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.160 did have the capacity to just walk away did that, 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.520 so he was left with like the oldest, sickest men 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.440 from the hospital. And then there were delays in outfitting 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.040 the ships, and the crews ate nothing but ships rations 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.360 for months as they waited, And while there were treatments 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.640 for scurvy on board, none of them contained much, if any, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.080 vitamin C, so they did not actually work for the 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.120 most part. They were also really unpleasant, like drinking a 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.720 bunch of straight vinegar. I like vinegar and vinegary things, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:55.840 but the idea of just gulping down a whole bunch 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.200 of it does not sound great to me. Hard pass. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.359 Once they finally got underway, they sailed through terrible storms 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.120 and were blown off course by April of seventeen forty one. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.240 Most of the men who had survived those treacherous seas 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.680 had then developed scurvy. By June, they were down from 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:18.360 six ships to only three, with only three hundred thirty 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:23.400 five survivors out of about thirteen hundred original crew. Finally 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.960 they reached the one Fernandez Islands off the coast of Chile. 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.800 These were home to plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.480 and as the ships took on fresh provisions and the 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.720 men ate these foods, they gradually began to recover, but 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.880 because their conditions were so dire, when they started getting 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.760 more vitamin C into their bodies, it actually took more 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.720 than a month before men stopped dying of scurvy. Anson's 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.840 dwindling fleet was struck by scurvy again in the Pacific 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.520 Ocean in the summer of seventeen forty two, obviously after 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.640 they had run out of the fresh provisions that they 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.360 brought on board. When his two mating ships finally got 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.760 to China, there were only two hundred and twenty seven 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.280 of the original crew still living. In spite of that, 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.320 they managed to capture a Spanish galleon that was bound 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.720 for Manila on June seventeen forty three, and then with 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.960 the holy a hundred and forty five of the original men, 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.360 they made it back to Britain. Because they had captured 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.880 the Spanish galleon, they were treated as heroes, with treasures 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.320 from the galleon paraded through the streets of London, and 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.600 Anson named First Lord of the Admiralty in seventeen fifty one. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.040 At this point, I mean it might seem a little 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.120 weird for the person who was in charge when all 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.360 of these people died, so then become the first Lord 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.000 of the Admiralty. But at this point, European naval officials 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.840 had long seen scurvy as an almost inevitable side effect 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.480 of sending men out to sea for long periods, and 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.600 they really did not know what was going on with 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.800 this disease. They did not know about vitamin C or 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.680 about vitamins at all. It would be more than a 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.400 hundred and fifty more years before Casimir Funk would coin 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.639 the word vitamine to describe specific chemical substances that the 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.040 body needed to survive. They did not know about collagen either. 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.480 The molecular structure of collagen was not discovered until the 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:22.639 nineteen thirties. Complicating all of this, Diets that lacked vitamin 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.720 C often lacked other essential nutrients as well, and outbreaks 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.560 of scurvy frequently happened alongside outbreaks of contagious diseases, so 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.760 it wasn't always clear exactly what disease was at work, 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.960 and often multiple conditions were getting lumped together and described 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:44.080 as scurvy. So over the centuries, various people noticed that 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:48.280 an assortment of foods seemed to cure scurvy. Sometimes they 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.119 did put that discovery in writing, but it took a 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:56.040 really long time before navies started consistently keeping effective treatments 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.960 for it on ships. This was not just a matter 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.960 of people forgeting that citrus fruits cured scurvy, though it 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.240 is definitely described that way sometimes, like people kind of 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.880 frame it as people in the past we're great, big 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.200 dummies who just kept forgetting that all that needed was oranges. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.679 In hindsight, it is really easy to see that the 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.680 things that treated scurvy effectively all have vitamin C in them. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.199 But at the time, not only did people not know 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.600 why any of those things actually worked, but their explanations 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.719 for why they worked we're totally off base. So as 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.400 people try to come up with carriers that were easier 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.720 to keep fresh on ships than fruits and vegetables are, 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.480 they just kept going down the completely wrong track. Often 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.120 James Lynde is the one who gets credit for solving 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.639 the scurvy problem, but it's of course history, so that 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.280 means it's way more complicated than that, And we're going 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.159 to get into all of that after we pause for 0:18:52.160 --> 0:19:03.360 a sponsor break. For hundreds of years medicine in Europe 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.040 rested on the idea of humors, and this drew from 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.720 Greek physicians and philosophers like Galen and Hippocrates. It also 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.560 appears in the work of Persian polymath even Sina. Similar 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.840 concepts are part of traditional Chinese medicine and agur Veda 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.440 as well. And in terms of the understanding of scurvy 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.960 and much of Europe, for hundreds of years, it was 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:31.399 believed to be due to putrefaction of the humors, and 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.160 then that puture faction was made worse by bad food, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.760 bad air, bad hygiene, or sometimes just laziness, and there 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.359 were a lot of people who figured out something that 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.080 worked to treat this. In fifteen seventy four, bal duenas 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.200 ron Cius wrote about oranges curing scurvy in Dutch sailors. 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.200 In the late sixteenth century, and Rick Oyer wrote about 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:58.280 cloud berries treating scurvy in Norse sailors. In sixteen seventeen, 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.879 John wood All published a reference book called The Surgeon's Mate, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:08.480 or Military and Domestic Surgery Discovering Faithfully and Plainly Ye 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.720 method an Order of Ye Surgeon's Chest. Ye uses of 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.600 the instruments, the virtues and operations of the medicines, with 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.720 the exact cures of wounds made by gunshot and otherwise 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:26.960 as namely wounds, appost fumes, ulcers, fistulas, fractures, dislocations with 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.399 the most easy and safest ways of amputation or dismembering. 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.800 The cures of the scurvy of you, fluxes of you, 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:41.760 belly of eucolic and iliaca, Passio of ten Assimus and 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.720 Exodus Ainta, and of the calend Tour, with a Treatise 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.000 of ye Cure of ye plague, published for the service 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.359 of His Master and of the Commonwealth by John would All, Mr. 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.320 In Surgery. As that very long title mentioned, it had 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.720 an entire section on scurvy and its treatment. I think 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:02.960 we should bring back the days where we basically include 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:08.200 the index in the title. Yeah. Well, I looked at 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.480 the table of contents for it, and at one point 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:13.760 I had the table of contents for what the section 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.560 of on scurvy included in here. But it was really 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:21.480 just like scurvy, it's description its treatment. Yeah. What All's 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.320 descriptions of scurvy are similar to what we talked about 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.760 earlier in the show. And as for its cure, he 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.600 wrote the quote as a famous writer named Johannes Ectius, 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.840 in a treatise Discorbuto, affirms consistent chiefly in four things, 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:41.000 namely in opening obstructions, evacuating the offending humors, in altering 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.560 the property of them, and in comforting and corroborating the 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.720 parts late diseased. What all stresses the need to keep 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.160 the cruise quarters clean and sweet, with as much high 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:56.360 quality comfortable food as possible. But if someone does get scurvy, 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.520 they should be bled and given some quote, pills of 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:05.119 youth fourbium or otherwise pibula, ruffie or cambosia. And then 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:09.040 after that some spoon meat, or some oatmeal or egg yolk, 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.000 or a broth of currants and other fruit, or some 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.080 sugar or spices, or some barley water, or some oil 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.280 of vitriol which is sulfuric acid, or putting some dried 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:24.600 wormwood in the patient's drink. And then quote further, the 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.040 surgeon or his mate must not fail to persuade the 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.040 governor or purser in all places where they touched in 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.240 the ndies, and may have it to provide themselves of 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:39.320 juice of oranges, limes or lemons, and at Bantham of tamarinds. 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.280 In the Surgeon's mate, Wood all makes lots of references 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.679 to citrus fruit, but he's really focused on when cruiser 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.680 in places where those fruits grow, because quote, the sea 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.960 surgeon shall do little good at sea with them, neither 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.880 will they endure. Yeah, he had stuff about citrus fruit 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:58.600 in here, but it was really about when they were 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:00.680 on land. And he also included and so many other 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:05.280 things that would not have been effective at all. Oil 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.320 of vitriol was a very common scurvy treatment. It was 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.359 literally sulfuric acid. It was that was not helpful. In 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:16.679 sixteen twenty two, Sir Richard Hawkins, who called scurvy quote 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:19.600 the plague of the sea and the spoil of mariners, 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:24.119 wrote that sour lemons and oranges could treat it. In 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:29.639 sixty five, Ambrosius Rhodius defended and published the first Scandinavian 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:33.800 doctoral thesis, and it was on scurvy. It described treating 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:38.560 scurvy with scurvy grass, common chick weed, watercress, mustard plants, 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:41.000 and the cloud berries that we mentioned earlier on in 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.720 the show. Ambrosius Rhodius did seem to understand that scurvy 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.240 was connected to nutrition, but his ideas on how that 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.320 worked were a little bit fuzzy. It was connected to 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:57.320 the idea of canceling out opposites shower. By the late 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:01.000 sixteen hundreds, people were using the word anti scorbutic to 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:05.560 describe things they believed to be useful against scurvy. Dutch 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.240 physician Johannes bach Schram used the term to describe fresh 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:13.320 fruits and vegetables in seventeen thirty four. Also in the 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.359 eighteenth century, Baron Gerhard von Swieten talked about scarcity of 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:21.320 greens and vegetables as contributing to scurvy, but he also 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:25.639 attributed it to quote noisome vapors arising from marshy grounds 0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:30.920 and stagnating waters, in action, drinking of corrupted and stagnating waters, 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:34.960 the use of salted and smoked flesh and fish, damp 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:39.840 and low lodgings, as well as sorrow, nostalgia and homesickness. 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:45.800 According to von Sweeten, treatment for scurvy involved quote, correcting 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:50.440 the impure waters and also purging. He also made dietary 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:56.320 recommendations quote the food should be broth with sheervil sorrel spinage, lettuce, 0:24:56.520 --> 0:25:01.639 andy suckery, cabbage, especially red cat abbage, young nettle, buds 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:05.919 and tops, or any other sort of tender herbage boiled 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.960 in it. The preference to be given to those easiest 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:13.320 to come at. Fruit quite ripe, used moderately always produces 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.159 a good effect. But if neither fruit nor greens can 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:19.760 be procured, the patient must have his broth with barley, 0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:23.080 oats or rice. He may eat likewise a little veal 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:27.200 or foul, but it must be moderately. So A lot 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:31.439