Testing your hypothesis
There was a time when scurvy was thought to be caused by laziness. One of the first visible symptoms is intense, debilitating fatigue.1 Soon, the gums start to swell, to the point of bulging over whatever remains of the teeth. One surgeon, having contracted the disease himself, took a knife to his own gums to release the black blood. And that’s just the beginning – the signature of scurvy is the ‘disintegration of the body’.2
A breakthrough in the fight against scurvy came in 1747, when a naval doctor did an experiment aboard HMS Salisbury. A group of 12 sailors, all suffering from scurvy, was split into six pairs of two. The pairs were kept in similar conditions and fed the same diet. But each pair was given a different ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access