Scurvy develops when the victim is deprived of vitamin C. On long ocean voyages, a sailor's diet consisted largely of salted meat and biscuit made from weevil-ridden flour. Although generally substantial and filling, it was tough to ingest and almost totally lacking in vitamins.
Mariners didn't know about vitamins, but some came to the obvious conclusion that a lack of fresh food brought on scurvy. Despite this knowledge, and more specifically, the knowledge that citrus fruits were especially effective at preventing and combatting the disease, fresh fruit and vegetables came second to the requirements of naval and exploratory expeditions. In the 1700s, one in seven men in the Royal Navy was expected to die from scurvy, typhus, or dysentery.
The first symptoms of scurvy are a debilitating weakness, followed by spots on the victims skin, and bleeding, receding gums. Body hair can become stiff and 'cork screwed'.The victim feels depressed and listless. If untreated, teeth begin to fall out - the tough mariners fare of the period would have exacerbated this - and finally, a terrible fever which left men raving and ranting before they died.
James Cook
Captain James Cook was one of the first explorers to wage concerted war against scurvy.
Cook, who had witnessed firsthand the horrors of this disease, began to include in his men's diet such foods as sauerkraut ( pickled cabbage), pickled celery, a curious 'carrot marmalade' and boiled weeds -cochlea officanalis, dubbed 'scurvy grass'. His men also drank a thick concoction of malt and yeast, and the boiled peels of lemons and oranges.
At the start of his second voyage, Cook decreed that each man had to eat twenty pounds of onions in one week (perhaps 80 onions!), and ten pounds every week after. Naturally, these peculiar foods caused uproar in his ships. Part of the problem lay in the fact that sailors, so long accustomed to salted pork, biscuit, and beer, were distrustful and even disdainful of new foods.
But Cook insisted his men eat them. When persuasion failed, he had them flogged. For any who doubted, the results spoke for themselves: his second voyage lasted three years, and only one man died from disease.
Despite the efforts of men like Cook, scurvy continued to be a major killer of mariners until the Napoleonic Wars, when fresh lemons and limes were included in sailors diets. In the mid 1800s, the term 'lime juicer' was used to denote a sailor or ship in the Royal Navy.
Scurvy in the Modern World
Thanks to modern refrigeration and preservation methods, and the apparently inexhaustible supply of fresh food to be found in the supermarkets of developed countries, scurvy has largely become a thing of the past. But cases do still occur, through dietary inefficiency, and in countries where people battle to furnish even meagre food for their bellies. Vitamin supplements are not necessary to prevent it, one just has to eat a decent amount of vitamin C-rich fruit and vegetables.
Source:
To the Ends of The Earth Journeys of the Great Explorers, Jon Balchin, Arcturus Publishing Ltd, 2005
