I've already read a lot about Cook and felt he was a bit shortchanged here, but as an introduction and overview of scurvy, it was an interesting and quick read ( )

We hear about the dreaded disease scurvy in pirate lore. But what caused it? Why did it wreak such havoc in the annals of exploration? And how was a cure finally discovered, and by whom?

Author Stephen Bown serves up an interesting survey of the problem of scurvy at sea over the centuries from the dawn of the Age of Sail, and three men in particular who made remarkable strides to identify and solve this vexing seafaring challenge that killed hundreds of thousands of sailors up until the mid-19th century.

The first, James Lind, a medical doctor from Scotland, conducted the world's first scientific study of scurvy on a ship called the Salisbury in 1747, where he served as ship's surgeon. Lind discovered that the juice from lemons and oranges were successful in restoring to health men with symptoms of scurvy on long ocean voyages. However, for a multitude of reasons, persuading the Royal Navy to act on his findings proved futile--due in large part to resource constraints and social and hierarchical pressures.

The second, famed English Captain James Cook, was tasked with experimenting with a cure for scurvy on his renowned expedition on the Endeavour to the south Pacific from 1768-1771. Famously, he lost no man to the dreaded disease. It was known that poor diet was the cause of the disease, but they had not figured out that it was a deficiency of vitamin C.

The third, Gilbert Blane, an English physician of high social standing, took Lind's and Cook's evidence and won audience and favor with the Lord of the Admiralty, finally persuading the Royal Navy to provision ships with enough ascorbic acid from lemons and oranges to virtually eradicate the malady.

I really enjoyed this book. I am delving deeper into characters and stories from the Age of Sail, which made it satisfying to see names appear in this book that I've been reading about elsewhere. Any well-written tale about the history of discovery is beguiling to me--a window of understanding towards men and women whose innovations within the confines and context of their times and were able to change the course of world events.

Bown writes this book in the "romance of science" style, made famous in large part by scientific biographer Richard Holmes, which can be explored in his book "This Long Pursuit", in which he shares his journey in developing this biographic style since the 1960s. ( )

"Scurvy" is gruesomely informative but a fantastic read!

Ascorbic acid or Vitamin C, is like glue for tissues and without it the body quite literally fall apart. It is horrifying. Teeth and nails fall out, muscles deteriorate, skin becomes blotched and fragile, and even wounds can reopen. More sailors died to scurvy than all the shipwrecks combined. Ch. 3 covers Lord Anson's 4-yr voyage, the worst medical disaster at sea. The 18th c. was peak Age of Sail and scurvy was worse than ever. The first major study was made by Dr. James Lind of Haslar Naval Hospital. Lind, unlike many other physicians, was apprenticed to a ship’s surgeon and saw scurvy first hand. Through experimentation, he recognized the critical consumption of certain produce. While he couldn't pinpoint the vitamin itself, positing that scurvy resulted from an “alkaline imbalance,” he knew that sailors needed fresher provisions, not malt or "meat slush." His attempt was a juice called “rob.” It could be stored, but in hindsight, the process quickly defeated the vitamin's potency. But Lind doesn't quite have the clout to convince the Admiralty. David MacBride, another scurvy theorist, proposes wort of malt as a preventative instead. An experiment was proposed for the harrowing voyages of the Endeavor, flagship of Capt. James Cook. The wort was hardly useful, but thankfully Cook was sharp enough to anchor anywhere for fresh supplies. I don't care for Cook, but he never lost a man to scurvy. However this isn't what the Royal Society's John Pringle wanted to hear, and the record was purposefully distorted. Enter Gilbert Blane, gentleman and personal physician to Admiral Sir George Rodney. On his own expense he distributed the info and bombarded the Admiralty. In 1795 lemon juice became a daily ration.

Of course, had the Brits known the preventative for scurvy a lot sooner, the American Revolution might've ended differently! ( )

adult nonfiction. got to page 89--really enjoyed it, but apparently there's only so much information about scurvy my brain can absorb. ( )

DNF @ 18%

I'm callin' it. No more. I KNOW THAT ASCORBIC ACID IS THE ANSWER IT'S THE 21ST GODDAMNED CENTURY so tell me how people who *couldn't* have known it was ascorbic acid firgured it out without saying it's ascorbic acid EVERY MOTHERFUCKIN PAGE. Cartier could've saved tens of thousands of lives with the white-cedar bar tea discovery. Boo hiss on him for not doing it.

The full star is for the subject of the book causing me to learn that scurvy is on the raise among gastric-bypass surgery recipients. And the Cartier discovery, I'd never heard of that or the Iroquois possessing the secret before now. ( )