WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Scurvy 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:07.240 Happy Saturday. Our recent installment of six Impossible episodes talked 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.800 about Nelly Cashman's efforts to get fresh vegetables to some 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.720 miners who were starving and developing scurvy. I don't remember 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.680 if we mentioned it in that episode, but we do 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.400 have a whole episode on the history of scurvy in 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.320 It's Today's Saturday Classic. It came out on December thirtieth, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.760 twenty twenty, and you can tell we were a little 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.920 frazzled after months of relative isolation in that first stretch 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.080 of the COVID nineteen pandemic. We got a couple of 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.199 corrections after this first came out. We talk about the 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.959 genetic mutation that kept our long ago ancestors from being 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.960 able to produce their own vitamin C, but that wasn't 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.200 a big issue because overwhelmingly they were living in tropical 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.000 areas and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. We 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.200 say that had they not been eating lots of foods 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.360 that were rich in vitamin C, they would have died out. 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.920 One letter writer noted that only the people carrying the 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.960 mutation would have died out. Everybody else would have been fine. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.000 Another correction from another listener pointed out that we did 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.399 not explain that heat breaks down vitamin C. We talked 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.920 about vitamin C being destroyed by cooking and by pasteurization 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.440 and by concentrating juice down into a rob which is 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.720 done by boiling. So heat is the common element among 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.040 all those things. And the last is that we read 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.720 the full title of the reference book, The Surgeon's Mate, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.160 which was full of the word yee spelled ye. This 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.560 correction noted that the why there was in place of 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.360 the character thorn, which would be pronounced th which is true, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:41.120 but would not have been nearly as funny. So enjoy. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.800 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:55.240 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy P. 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.960 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This episode is the last 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.160 episode I am for the year twenty twenty. It's been 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.840 a year. Hooray, yeah, hooray. Also, I'm just I've had 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.400 minimal contact with anybody besides my spouse in almost nine months, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.360 and for some reason, my brain keeps being like scurvy. 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:21.960 And that connection doesn't make sense really, because if I 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:27.040 were to get a vitamin deficiency because of the pandemic, 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.840 it would probably be about vitamin D from the not 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.720 going out into the sun. Is that what you're saying 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:35.960 is that your brain is making a weird jump of 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.440 concern of vitamin deficiency. Maybe not concern, but maybe more 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.720 like at least I don't have scurvy, like huh, but brain, 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.360 that doesn't make any sense anyway. That's what we're going 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:50.760 to talk about today, is scurvy because just for some 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.679 weird reason, my brain keeps coming back around to it 0:02:53.760 --> 0:03:00.440 in these times of winter and pandemic. So skirv in 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.480 case you don't know, and you probably do, is a 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.919 deficiency in vitamin C or a sorbic acid, and its 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.959 story goes way way back in history, all the way 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.920 to our evolutionary ancestors living more than sixty million years ago. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.600 With a few exceptions including guinea pigs and bats. Most 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.519 mammals can generate their own acorbic acid, and that included 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.840 those primate ancestors. But somewhere along the way, a random 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.680 genetic mutation broke the ability to produce an enzyme known 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.360 as L glunolactone oxidase or GULO, which is a necessary 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.160 part of making a sorbic acid. Acorbic acid is also 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.279 necessary the body uses it to synthesize the protein collagen, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.880 and collagen is a crucially important part of our connective tissue. 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.480 We need it to do really important things like hold 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.800 our skin and blood vessels together. So if the body 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:57.680 cannot replace worn out collagen, it causes serious problems. The 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.200 first symptoms of scurvy involve fatigu lethargy, and aching joints. 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.840 People start to bruise easily, wounds won't heal, and old 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.920 wounds reopen. The gums start to bleed, and the teeth 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.960 start to loosen and can in fact come out entirely. 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.760 This is also accompanied by foul odors, including very bad breath. 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.560 Without treatment with vitamin C, scurvy is eventually fatal, often 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.680 because of acute internal bleeding around the brain or heart. 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.799 But when our ancestors stopped being able to produce guloh, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.719 this really did not matter. They were living in tropical 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.600 areas and their diets included lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.440 so they were getting plenty of vitamin C through their food. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.880 If this had not been true, this genetic mutation that 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.160 shut off the ability to synthesize guloh would have wiped 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.440 them out, but since their diets were rich with vitamin C, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.480 they continued to thrive. As people started living farther from 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.599 tropical areas, they started eating more foods that did not 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.080 necessarily contain as much vitamin CEA, but most of the 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.440 time this was still not a big problem. Most dietary 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.279 recommendations call for significantly more vitamin C, but it doesn't 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.919 actually take that much just to prevent scurvy. Only about 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.760 ten milligrams a day are all you need, and although 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.080 vitamin C is mostly associated with fruits and vegetables, it 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.599 is found in other foods as well. Most meat contains 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.960 a little if it hasn't been cooked too long, and 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.080 liver and kidney meat in particular contained quite a bit 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.240 of it. So, as one example, the practice of eating 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.279 raw organ meat in far northern indigenous communities provides protection 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.320 from scurvy even when plant based foods are unavailable or 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.640 out of season. So as communities established themselves around the world, 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.640 people had to have some kind of vitamin C in 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.880 their diets, otherwise that community just could not survive. But 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.320 anytime that access to food was cut off in some way, 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.320 say because of a war or a famine, people could 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.359 start to develop scurvy. And this was also true for 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.679 people with diseases and conditions that kept them from eating 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.839 or kept them from absorbing the nutrients and their food. 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.960 And the word scurvy comes from older terms that mean lazy, scabbed, 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.400 or scurf, which used to be used to describe dandruff. 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.240 People started using it to describe this disease in about 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.960 the sixteenth century, but written descriptions of scurvy that predate 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.720 that word are much older. The earliest likely description of 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.279 scurvy is found in the Egyptian document known as the 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.520 ebers Papyrus, which dates back to about fifteen hundred BCE. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.400 Past podcast subject Shushruda described a condition involving bleeding gums 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:46.159 and loosening teeth around eight hundred BCE. Roughly four hundred 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:50.520 years later, Greek physician Hippocrates described what was probably scurvy, 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.320 and while he did not go into detail about the 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.120 cure he knew for it, he did note that it 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:01.400 wasn't effective and that patients usually died Ditional Chinese medicine 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.480 texts describe collections of symptoms that very much resemble scurvy 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:10.240 as well, so today scurvy is associated with long sea 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.520 voyages and his humanity took to the sea. People worked 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.160 out some ways to prevent it, although really without necessarily 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.360 knowing that that was what they were doing. Many of 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.840 the earliest seafarers stuck close to the coasts or they 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.080 island topped, and that gave them plenty of opportunities to 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.000 stock up on fresh food. But as voyages got longer, 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.800 many also had foods on board that were rich in 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:40.560 vitamin C. It's possible that Polynesian wayfinders introduced sweet potatoes 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.600 to Central and South America. They would have brought them 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.600 with them over thousands of miles of ocean, and sweet 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:52.800 potatoes contained vitamin C. Scandinavians stocked their ships with cloud berries, 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.720 which have about four times as much vitamin C as 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:01.360 oranges do. Unpasteurized milk also contains vitamin SEA, so seafarers 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.240 who had dairy animals on board could get it that way. 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.960 While scurvy was common enough to be documented in ancient 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.320 medical literature, one of the first specifically documented outbreaks happened 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.760 in the thirteenth century during the Eighth Crusade. King Louis 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.200 the ninth lay siege to Tunis. Although there were plenty 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.840 of fresh fruits and vegetables available in the area, the 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.240 king and his fighting force were mostly eating fish, and 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.480 many were also undertaking religious fasts. The king and about 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.440 a sixth of his men died of disease during this siege. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.040 For a long time, their deaths were attributed to plague, 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.319 but more recent research has found evidence of scurvy in 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.320 the king's jawbone. Not long after this, scurvy started to 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.880 become a serious problem on European ships during long sea voyages, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.040 and most of the literature that's related to scurvy in 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:57.360 history today is focused primarily on Europe and its colonies, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.040 mostly during the Age of Exploration, which was from a 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.200 about the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. But of course 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.240 Europeans were not the only people taking to the sea 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.600 at this point. It's possible that other nations aren't as 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.240 represented in English language literature because of language barriers or prejudice, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.319 but it's also possible that scurvy was just not as 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.280 much of a problem outside of European fleets. Most of 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.240 the time, it takes between two months and twelve weeks 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.840 without vitamin CEA for a person to develop scurvy, and 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.000 while sailors from parts of Africa and Asia were taking 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.920 voyages that lasted much longer than that, overall, often they 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.880 were not going that long between stops to resupply. It 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:40.880 also seems like they may have been doing a better 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.120 job at providing their crews with foods rich in vitamin Sea. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.199 Past podcast subject Ibin Batuta, who was from what's now 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.640 Morocco and traveled extensively during the fourteenth century, described green 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.520 vegetables and ginger being grown in tanks on Chinese vessels. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.040 He also wrote about salted ginger, pepper, lemon, and mangoes 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.360 being loaded onto ships in preparation for long voyages. Another 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.920 previous podcast subject is Jungha, who led fleets of treasure 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.360 ships from China all the way to Africa in the 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.880 fifteenth century, and we don't have lists of exactly what 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.920 provisions he took, but we do know that his fleets 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.599 included huge supply vessels whose whole purpose was sustaining the 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.480 voyage itself, and that the ships had kitchens that prepared 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.319 meals for crews and passengers. There are also multiple references 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.640 to tea in relation to his voyages, and tea does 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.559 contain some vitamin C. For the most part, written records 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.160 of scurvy on Chinese vessels don't really start until the 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.320 nineteenth century, when people left China bound for California during 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.960 the Gold Rush. But European ships were another story. Especially 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.920 as European ships crossed whole oceans. People's diets were often 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.600 restricted to salted meat and hardtack and not much else. Typically, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:05.000 any vegetables grown on board were only for the officers. Consequently, 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:10.440 it's estimated that scurvy killed two million European sailors between 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.640 the fifteenth century and the nineteenth century, which is when 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.520 navies started to more consistently connect scurvy prevention to things 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.840 like citrus juice. During these centuries, scurvy was the leading 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.520 cause of death among sailors at sea. It was also 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.960 a major cause of death among enslaved Africans during the 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.360 Transatlantic slave trade, although the details of that aspect have 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:38.040 not been nearly as specifically documented as with ship's crews. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.480 And we're going to talk about some more specific scurvy 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:54.400 information after we first pause for a little sponsor break. Today, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.880 scurvy is treated almost like a punchline in pirate jokes, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.760 but it was an enormous problem for hundreds of years. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.000 Scurvy killed a hundred of the original one hundred and 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.320 seventy crew during Vasco de Gama's voyage to the Indian 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.760 subcontinent that started in fourteen ninety seven. For Nan Magellan 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.400 left Spain with a fleet of five ships in fifteen nineteen, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.520 searching for a way to reach Asia from Europe by 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.480 traveling west by sea. Only eighteen of his original crew 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.240 of two hundred and seventy made it back to Spain 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.040 in fifteen twenty two, with scurvy being a major cause 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.560 of death. Here is how one of Magellan's crew described 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.560 conditions in his journal quote, we ate only old biscuit, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.719 reduced to powder and full of grubs and stinking from 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:46.880 the dirt which the rats had made on it when 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.760 eating the good biscuit, and we drank water that was 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.240 yellow and stinking. The men were so hungry that if 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.600 any of them caught a rat, he could sell it 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.840 for a high price to someone who would eat it. 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:03.080 In fifteen thirty five, French explorer Jacques Cartier established a 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.320 fort across the Saint Charles River from the Iroquoisan village 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.880 of Stadacona that's near what's now Quebec City. That winter 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.720 was extremely harsh. Cardier's ships became ice bound. They were 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.840 not able to return to France's planned and when they 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.120 heard of an illness that was spreading through the indigenous population, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.920 they tried to cut off contact with them, but then 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.120 that same illness started to spread through Cardier's own men. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.520 In an account translated by Richard Hacklett, it's described as 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.600 this quote. Some did lose their strength and could not 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.000 stand on their feet. Then did their legs swell. Their 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.280 sinnow's shrink as black as any coal. Others also had 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.040 all their skins spotted with spots of blood of a 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:51.520 purple color. Then did ascend up to their ankles, knees, thighs, shoulders, arms, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.720 and neck. Their mouth became stinking, their gums so rotten 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.400 that all the flesh did fall off, even to the 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.360 roots of the teeth, which also all fall out. About 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.320 the middle of February, of one hundredth and ten persons 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.440 that we were there were not ten whole. There were 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.480 already eight dead, and more than fifty six. And as 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.880 we saw it, passed all hope of recovery, so at 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.360 some point Cardier went for a walk and encountered Domagaya, 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.880 who was the son of Doncona, who was the chief 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:27.400 of Stadacona. Domagaya told Cardier about a treatment for this disease, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.920 which was to prepare a tea from the leaves of 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.240 a local tree. This tree is not conclusively identified today, 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.400 but the most likely candidate is the eastern white cedar, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.160 whose leaves always contain some vitamincy but have a whole 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.880 lot more of it in the new growth that comes 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.320 out in the early spring. Although at least twenty five 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.800 men in the fort died of scurvy, this cure was 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.160 effective for the ones who survived. There is a court, 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.680 of course, a whole lot more to this story outside 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:01.240 the part about scurvy. Cardier had actually abducted Domagaia and 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.960 his brother on his earlier voyage and forced them to 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.040 accompany him back to France, bringing them back to North 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.960 America with him in fifteen thirty five, and at the 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.720 end of his second voyage, Cardier abducted them for a 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.000 second time, along with their father and seven other indigenous people. 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.360 All but one of them died before Cardier returned to 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.040 North America for his third voyage in fifteen forty one. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.160 Probably the most dramatic and notorious outbreak of scurvy at 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.200 sea was during George Anson's four year voyage around the world, 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.640 which started in seventeen forty. Britain was at war with Spain, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.320 and because of the war, Anson had a serious labor shortage. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.840 Even press gangs, who were abducting men off the street 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.480 to force them to serve in the Royal Navy could 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.359 not provide him with enough men for his fleet. Eventually, 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:54.240 this gap was filled with men from Chelsea Hospital, most 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.520 of whom were sick, injured, or elderly to the point 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.440 that they weren't able to just leave on their own. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.520 When they got released from the hospital. The people who 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.400 did have the capacity to just walk away did that, 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.840 so he was left with like the oldest, sickest men 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.720 from the hospital. And then there were delays in outfitting 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.400 the ships, and the crews ate nothing but ships rations 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.680 for months as they waited, and while there were treatments 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.720 for scurvy on board, none of them contained much, if 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.280 any vitamin C, so they did not actually work for 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.360 the most part. They were also really unpleasant, like drinking 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:36.040 a bunch of straight vinegar. I like vinegar and vinegary things, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.200 but the idea of just gulping down a whole bunch 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.800 of it does not sound great to me. Hard pass. 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.680 Once they finally got underway, they sailed through terrible storms 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.440 and were blown off course by April of seventeen forty one. 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.520 Most of the men who had survived those treacherous seas 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.920 had then developed scurvy. By June, they were down from 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.320 six ships to only three, with only three high hundred 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.480 and thirty five survivors out of about thirteen hundred original crew. 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.840 Finally they reached the Wan Fernandez Islands off the coast 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.359 of Chile. These were home to plenty of fresh fruits 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.560 and vegetables, and as the ships took on fresh provisions 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.200 and the men ate these foods, they gradually began to recover. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.919 But because their conditions were so dire, when they started 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.920 getting more vitamin C into their bodies, it actually took 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.800 more than a month before men stopped dying of scurvy. 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.639 Anson's dwindling fleet was struck by scurvy again in the 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.080 Pacific Ocean in the summer of seventeen forty two, so 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.760 obviously after they had run out of the fresh provisions 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.080 that they brought on board. When his two remaining ships 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.919 finally got to China, there were only two hundred and 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.320 twenty seven of the original crew still living. In spite 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.119 of that, they managed to capture a Spanish galleon that 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.920 was bound for Manila on June twentieth of seventeen forty three, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.960 and then with a holy one hundred and forty five 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.720 five of the original men, they made it back to Britain. 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.560 Because they had captured the Spanish galleon, they were treated 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.199 as heroes, with treasures from the galleon paraded through the 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.399 streets of London, and Anson named first Lord of the 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.200 Admiralty in seventeen fifty one. At this point, I mean, 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.400 it might seem a little weird for the person who 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.960 was in charge when all of these people died to 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.400 then become the first Lord of the Admiralty. But at 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.160 this point European naval officials had long seen scurvy as 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.320 an almost inevitable side effect of sending men out to 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.719 sea for long periods, and they really did not know 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.320 what was going on with this disease. They did not 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.119 know about vitamin C, or about vitamins at all. It 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.920 would be more than one hundred and fifty more years 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.760 before Casimir Funk would coin the word vitamin to describe 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.280 specific chemical substances that the body needed to survive. They 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.080 did not know about collagen either. The molecular structure of 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.320 collagen was not discovered until the Night teaen thirties. Complicating 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.960 all of this, diets that lacked vitamin C often lacked 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.160 other essential nutrients as well, and outbreaks of scurvy frequently 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.639 happened alongside outbreaks of contagious diseases, so it wasn't always 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.640 clear exactly what disease was at work, and often multiple 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.720 conditions were getting lumped together and described as scurvy. So 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:27.359 over the centuries, various people noticed that an assortment of 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.159 foods seemed to cure scurvy. Sometimes they did put that 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.359 discovery in writing, but it took a really long time 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.400 before navies started consistently keeping effective treatments for it on ships. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.680 This was not just a matter of people forgetting that 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.919 citrus fruits cured scurvy, though it is definitely described that 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.520 way sometimes like people kind of frame it as people 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.760 in the past were great, big dummies who just kept 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.960 forgetting that all they needed was oranges. In hindsight, it 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.200 is really easy to see that the things that treated 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.320 scurvy effectively all have vitamin C in them. But at 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.080 the time, not only did people not know why any 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.440 of those things actually worked, but their explanations for why 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.600 they worked were totally off base. So as people tried 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.240 to come up with cures that were easier to keep 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.879 fresh on ships than fruits and vegetables are, it just 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.639 kept going down the completely wrong track. Often James Lynde 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.600 is the one who gets credit for solving this scurvy problem, 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.600 but it's of course history, so that means it's way 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.160 more complicated than that, And we're going to get into 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.399 all of that after we pause for a sponsor break. 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.560 For hundreds of years, medicine in Europe rested on the 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.560 idea of humors, and this drew from Greek physicians and 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.959 philosophers like Galen and Hippocrates. It also appears in the 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:00.880 work of Persian polymath Ebn Sina. Similar concepts are part 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.480 of traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda as well, and in 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.879 terms of the understanding of scurvy and much of Europe. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.560 For hundreds of years it was believed to be due 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.920 to putrefaction of the humors, and then that puture faction 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.480 was made worse by bad food, bad air, bad hygiene, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.040 or sometimes just laziness, and there were a lot of 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.760 people who figured out something that worked to treat this. 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.919 In fifteen seventy four, Balduinus Roncius wrote about oranges curing 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:35.359 scurvy in Dutch sailors. In the late sixteenth century, Enrich 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:40.560 Euer wrote about cloudberry's treating scurvy in Norse sailors. In 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:45.159 sixteen seventeen, John Woodall published a reference book called The 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:50.919 Surgeon's Mate, or Military and Domestique Surgery Discovering Faithfully and 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.360 plainly YE method. An order of ye Surgeon's chest, Ye 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.760 uses of the instruments, the virtues and operations of YE medicines, 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.439 with the exact cures of wounds made by gunshot and 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:10.240 otherwise as namely wounds, appost fumes, ulcers, fistulas, fractures, dislocations 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.800 with the most easy and safest ways of amputation or dismembering. 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.200 The cures of the scurvy of Ye, fluxes of you, 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:26.399 belly of ucolic and Iliaca Passio of Tenasimus and exotus Ana, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.600 and of the calend Tour with a Treatise of Ye 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.600 Cure of ye Plague, published for the service of His 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.760 Master and of the Commonwealth by John Woodhall, mister in surgery. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.320 As that very long title mentioned, it had an entire 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.480 section on scurvy and its treatment. I think we should 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:46.880 bring back the days where we basically include the index 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:52.600 in the title. Yeah. Well, I looked at the table 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.280 of contents for it, and at one point I had 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.200 the table of contents for what the section on scurvy 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.640 included in here, But it was really like scurvy, it's description, 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:06.840 it's treatment. Yeah. What All's descriptions of scurvy are similar 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:08.960 to what we talked about earlier in the show. And 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.679 as for its cure, he wrote that quote as a 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.760 famous writer named Johannes Ekteus in a treatise Discorbuto a 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.880 Firmus consisted chiefly in four things, namely in opening obstructions, 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:25.440 evacuating the offending humors, in altering the property of them, 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:30.200 and in comforting and corroborating the parts late diseased. What 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.800 All stresses the need to keep the cruise quarters clean 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:37.680 and sweet, with as much high quality, comfortable food as possible. 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:40.840 But if someone does get scurvy, they should be bled 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:45.560 and given some quote pills of euphorbium or otherwise pibula 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:50.480 ruffy or cambosia. And then after that some spoon meat 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.679 or some oatmeal or egg yolk, or a broth of 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:57.320 currants and other fruit, or some sugar or spices, or 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.680 some barley water, or some oil of vitrey which is 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:05.800 sulfuric acid, or putting some dried wormwood in the patient's drink. 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:09.840 And then quote further, the surgeon or his mate must 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.240 not fail to persuade the governor or purser in all 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:15.520 places where they touched in the Indies, and may have 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:20.280 it to provide themselves of juice of oranges, limes or lemons, 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:25.200 and at bantham of tamarinds. In the surgeon's mate. Woodall 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.720 makes lots of references to citrus fruit, but he's really 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.800 focused on when cruiser in places where those fruits grow, 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.800 because quote, the sea surgeon shall do little good at 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:38.920 sea with them, neither will they endure. Yeah, he had 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.359 stuff about citrus fruit in here, but it was really 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:43.520 about when they were on land. And he also included 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.120 so many other things that would not have been effective 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:51.520 at all. Oil of vitriol was a very common scurvy treatment. 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:55.840 It was literally sulfuric acid that was not helpful. In 0:24:55.880 --> 0:25:00.000 sixteen twenty two, Sir Richard Hawkins, who called scurvy quote 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.080 the plague of the sea and the spoil of mariners, 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.560 wrote that sour lemons and oranges could treat it. In 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:12.159 sixteen thirty five, Ambrosius Rhodius defended and published the first 0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:16.720 Scandinavian doctoral thesis, and it was on scurvy. It described 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:22.040