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Rob and Rot: The Historiography of Scurvy

By: Britt Henslee

Introduction

As a global disease unbounded by race, gender, or locale, scurvy has long generated histories of different perspectives and uses. Scurvy’s historiography reflects evolving academic and social atmospheres, with early writers more attentive to important figures and governments while later historians considered culture, race and lived experiences. This essay dissects scurvy’s historiography, analyzing thematic changes over time. To do so, it is divided into four chronological and thematic sections.

The first section, “Early Perspectives,” examines scurvy histories from 1883 to 1920. During this period, scurvy’s continued prevalence within global conflicts motivated research into its history. Available treatment options existed but did not always work, and the causes of scurvy remained unclear. Hoping to understand the unexplained facets of scurvy, historians looked for correlation within macro-scaled and quantitative analyses that focused on geography, timelines, and governments.

The second section, “Narratives of Western Success,” shows that histories from 1939 to 1956 deviated from the macro, quantitative focus of previous historians. Historians of this period, persuaded by ideas of Western “dominance” during WWI and WWII, favored narrative histories about the great European captains and physicians who “conquered” the disease.

The third section, “The Socio-Historical Revolution,” discusses histories from 1961 to 1975. Influenced by 1960s sociocultural revolutions that questioned authority and national narratives, historians of this period argued against the “oversimplified” Western success stories of previous decades. By disputing previous narratives of greatness, historians produced new considerations for scurvy’s relationship to social class and authority.

The last section, “Modern Perspectives,” considers the expanding condition of scurvy histories since the 2000s. Shaped by emerging academic tracks like African American studies and material culture, modern scurvy historians have reconsidered the disease with new perspectives in mind. These histories vary widely, with some historians more focused on the daily lives of scorbutics and others on the wider cultural impact of the disease.

Background

Scurvy is a nutritional deficiency resulting from low intake of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. Symptoms are widespread but commonly include swollen, black gums and loose teeth, distended legs, bursting blood vessels, disconnecting joints, and leaking internal and external ulcers.[1] Victims experience difficulty eating, moving, and speaking. As the disease progresses, scorbutics are susceptible to extreme sensual overstimulation, heightened emotions, and hallucinations, all of which can lead to deadly aneurysms.[2] Other scorbutics die from internal bleeding as their bodies begin to disintegrate.

Humans have likely experienced scurvy for much of the past, but reports increased rapidly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[3] The rise of seafaring during this time bore responsibility, due to the limited vitamin C in sailors’ daily rations of pork, biscuits, and beer. Experts understood little about nutrition, and treatments were hotly debated. Some argued poor hygiene caused scurvy, while others maintained it stemmed from toxicity in the air.[4] Dr. James Lind conducted a clinical trial on scurvy victims in the 1750s and found that lemon juice, or “rob,” cured their sickness. At the same time, Captain Cook sailed the Endeavor under different recommendations; he kept his ship clean and provided rations of sauerkraut and malt. Upon its return, the Endeavor reported zero cases of scurvy and Cook declared malt a successful preventative.[5] Other field experts contested Lind and Cook’s different treatment plans over the next four decades, until Dr. Gilbert Blane, a former student of Lind, successfully convinced the British Navy to issue rob among their crews.[6]

The issuing of lemon rob in the late 1700s immediately lessened the burden of scurvy, resulting in a temporary consensus that some quality present in citrus cured the disease. However, a later swapping of ingredients from lemons to less-ascorbic West Indian limes in the 1800s caused another series of outbreaks and disputes as to whether rob had ever worked.[7] Finally, during the end of WWI, scientists at the Lister Institute were able to isolate ascorbic acid as the component of lemons which prevented and treated scurvy, ending the scientific unknowns of the previous centuries.[8]

Early Perspectives (1883 to 1920)

Histories written from 1883 to 1920 reflected ambiguous understandings of scurvy. Writers were fact-focused and created timelines to make arguments for scurvy’s potential causes and treatments. Other common features included macro-scale descriptions of events, reports from important figures and governments, and the use of quantitative evidence, which were common historiographical trends at the time.[9]

The first author of this period, Dr. August Hirsch, was a German physician who situated himself into ongoing debates about scurvy’s causes during the late 1800s. In The Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, Volume One (1883) and Volume Two (1885), Hirsch used statistical reports of outbreaks during voyages and military efforts to argue scurvy resulted from the “want for fresh vegetables.”[10] In both of these scenarios, he determined rates of scurvy increased corresponding with poor rations or spoilage of fruits and vegetables. This argument exemplified early historical focuses to understand the unknowns of scurvy.

Hirsch reasoned it was necessary to establish a global timeline of scurvy’s historical pathology in order to understand modern outbreaks. He initiated macro-scale, chronological research of scurvy reports throughout the past, beginning with ancient civilizations. Hirsch first examined reports from Hippocrates and Aristotle of similar diseases and concluded there were no verifiable reports of scurvy from their time.[11] He was sure, however, that a 1218 memo from Jacques de Vitry of a “plague” upon his men during the Crusades indicated one of the earliest records of scurvy.[12] From there, outbreaks were more frequent with reports from Vasco de Gama and Cartier in the fifteenth century of an unknown disease decimating their sailing crews.[13] A few centuries later, Anson’s voyages demonstrated the devastating increase of scurvy, with his ships reporting over 2,400 cases where most victims died of the disease.[14] Hirsch combined these captains’ reports with statistics of wartime and navy outbreaks in the 1800s to establish his global timeline. He then used this extensive timeline to support his arguments about the correlation between scurvy and the lack of fresh vegetables. Notably, though Hirsch sought to establish a global timeline, he mostly used examples from Western nations as evidence.

Hirsch also examined contemporary scurvy outbreaks, where reports of land scurvy increased while sea scurvy’s numbers declined. He argued three factors encouraged this transition. Firstly, lemon rob rations were better adopted on sea vessels than on land due to naval recommendations.[15] Secondly, technological improvements to ships made for faster voyages and better food preservation. And finally, military operations of the late 1800s offered limited access to vegetable rations, thereby increasing instances of scurvy on land.[16] Hirsch’s synchronization between contemporary outbreaks and the availability of vegetables indicates his goal of establishing causation. Furthermore, the combination of quantitative metrics from military agencies with reports from important figures like Captain Anson and Vasco de Gama exemplified qualities of the early perspectives historiographical period.

In 1919, new discoveries on scurvy over the course of WWI motivated Alice Henderson Smith to research its history. That same year, a group of scientists at the Lister Institute isolated vitamin C as the mysterious antiscorbutic property of citrus fruits that cured scurvy. They also found that the West Indian lime, which replaced lemons in British naval rations during the 1800s, lacked an appreciable amount of vitamin C to prevent or treat scurvy. Henderson Smith argued that this finding explained scurvy’s increasing trajectory throughout the 1800s despite adequate rations.[17] She, like Hirsch, built a timeline of scurvy outbreaks with the goal of better understanding its progression. Searching specifically for when lemons were swapped to limes, Henderson Smith offered a more condensed timeline limited to the 1700s and the 1800s.

In A Historical Inquiry into the Efficacy of Lime Juice for the Prevention and Cure of Scurvy, Henderson Smith began with a review of Dr. James Lind’s clinical trials from the 1750s. She discovered his trials were conducted with Mediterranean lemons, whose juice, Dr. Lind concluded, cured scurvy.[18] At some point during the 1800s, the British Navy replaced lemons with cheaper West Indian limes.[19] Henderson Smith pinpointed this transition somewhere between 1855 and 1875, evidenced by increased scurvy reports after that period. As an example of successful lemon rations from before the swap, she referenced Captain McClure’s Investigator voyages of 1850 and 1854, which both reported zero cases of scurvy. In contrast, the Alert and Discovery Arctic voyages from Britain in 1875 used lime rations and reported numerous cases.[20] Henderson Smith’s analysis of scurvy rates combined with the Lister Institute’s nutritional findings supported her argument that swapping to lime rations increased scurvy’s prevalence in the late 1800s. This argument differed from Hirsch’s conclusion that more instances of land scurvy explained increasing rates overall.

Henderson Smith and Hirsch both relied on quantitative timelines to determine correlation but differed in the breadth of their inquiries. While Hirsch sought a global timeline that began with ancient civilizations, Henderson Smith limited her timeline to Europe in the Early Modern period. Additionally, Henderson Smith offered a narrower focus on lemons and limes compared to Hirsch’s fruits and vegetables. This increase in specificity demonstrates improved understandings of scurvy in the forty years between Hirsch and Henderson Smith’s publications. Despite having more nutritional information, Henderson Smith still approached her research with the same essential goal as Hirsch: to explain changes in scurvy’s trajectory.

The last early perspectives historian, Alfred F. Hess, researched scurvy’s history from a medical background similar to Hirsch. In Scurvy: Past and Present (1920), Hess revisited Hirsch’s broader global timeline and added contemporary outbreak data to continue discussions of scurvy’s correlations and trajectory. Hess relied heavily on quantitative evidence to support his arguments, at one point listing scurvy cases during every year of WWI divided by nation.[21] In addition to his use of data, Hess also described personal accounts from scurvy victims. He referenced the same early reports of scurvy during the crusades as Hirsch but added a journaled account of surgeons painfully cutting away excess gum tissue to help a patient chew again.[22] This addition of personal experiences to the timeline marked a small deviation from Hirsch and Henderson Smith’s strict reliance on data and macro-scale outbreak reports.

Hess also differed from Hirsch and Henderson Smith in his examinations of scurvy within civilian populations experiencing food shortages and in institutions like prisons, asylums and poorhouses.[23] While Henderson Smith argued the uptick in scurvy during the late 1800s was due to lime rations, Hess argued it was also due to the increasing number of living institutions that offered poor rations for inhabitants.[24] This consideration of social institutions stood apart from other histories of this period, exemplifying historiographical changes as the disease became more well understood.

The early perspectives of scurvy’s history offered insight to its impact on a macro scale through timelines and correlations predictive of outbreaks. These histories, more attentive to establishing a long-term trajectory of scurvy, often lacked personal depth and were not concerned with narratives about efforts to eliminate scurvy, a writing trend that changed moving into the 1930s.

Narratives of Western Success (1939 to 1956)

The second wave of scurvy historians used micro-scaled narratives of Western “conquest” to describe scurvy’s eradication. They argued that contributions from great Western men like Captain Cook and Dr. James Lind in the mid-1700s effectively eliminated scurvy. WWI and WWII propaganda declaring Western “greatness” during this time period likely contributed to the prominence of these narratives.

Some historians of this period who focused on Captain Cook used biographical narratives applauding his sailing of the Endeavor across the Pacific with zero reported cases of scurvy. According to the narratives found in histories like Life of Captain Cook by Hugh Carrington (1939) or The Life and Achievements of Captain James Cook: Explorer, Navigator, Surveyor, and Physician by Surgeon Rear-Admiral John R. Muir (1939), Cook’s strict hygienic regimen and determination purged scurvy from the Endeavor.[25] Though illuminating as evidence for Cook’s attributed greatness, these histories go far beyond the topic of scurvy and therefore won’t be analyzed with further depth here.

Other historians during this period chose to focus on Dr. James Lind’s clinical trials and treatment for scurvy. A.P. Meiklejohn, a WWII nutrition advisor and historian, published “The Curious Obscurity of Dr. James Lind” in 1954. Meiklejohn considered explanations for Cook’s popularity among scurvy researchers while Lind remained “a comparatively obscure figure.”[26] He narratively examined Lind’s life and relationships hoping to explain this discrepancy and concluded the British Navy did not take Lind’s publications seriously due to academic and social conspiracies against him.

Meiklejohn argued that Lind’s brilliance in correctly identifying and recommending citrus as a cure for scurvy was overshadowed by his lack of popularity when publishing. To Meiklejohn, this was the result of other scurvy physicians of the mid-1700s, namely Anthony Addington, an “armchair medical learner” who never sailed, and Charles Bisset, Lind’s university rival, working politically and conspiratorially to silence Lind’s treatise.[27] As evidence of this argument, Meiklejohn noted that Lind was never selected as a Fellow of the Royal Society while other physicians in his position were. Meiklejohn also argued that the four decades that passed before the British Navy incorporated Lind’s recommendations demonstrated the long-term effects of this conspiracy. Throughout his article, Meiklejohn painted Lind as an underdog whose ideas eventually prevailed. This narrative historical structuring marked a stark shift from previous quantitative, macro-scaled histories and exemplifies trends from scurvy’s second wave of research.

A. Edward A. Hudson and Arthur Herbert, writing only two years after Meiklejohn, provided a different assessment of Dr. Lind. In “James Lind: His Contributions to Shipboard Sanitation” (1956), they described a notable figure whose recommendations of lemon rob immediately “resulted in a concentrated attack upon the sea diseases to the benefit of all sailors of all nations.”[28] This quote displays the same narrative style present in Meiklejohn’s work, positioning Lind as a hero against scurvy’s decimation.

Hudson and Herbert first established Lind’s biography prior to his clinical trials in the 1750s. They depicted a young physician working his way up as a surgeon’s assistant who spent years aboard dark, damp ships caring after sick crewmates, cleaning vomit and discharge, and eating spoiled food.[29] Hudson and Herbert argued it was this experience aboard infected ships that motivated Lind’s later research into scurvy. Their focus on Lind’s daily shipboard experiences (though also portraying Lind as an underdog) differed from Meiklejohn’s analysis of political rivalries and larger academic conspiracies.

Interestingly, Hudson and Herbert argued that some of Lind’s recommendations for decreasing scurvy rates—separating sick and healthy crewmates, frequently washing floors and hammocks, and burning small fires to dry the air—were promptly used by Captain Cook aboard the Endeavor.[30] They referenced Cook’s zero reported cases of scurvy on the Endeavor, writing “In this, the teachings of Lind most certainly played an important role.”[31] This argument contradicted Meiklejohn’s descriptions of Lind’s obscurity resulting in his recommendations being stuck in limbo for forty years. Additionally, Hudson and Herbert’s conclusion does not seem well-evidenced as Captain Cook operated under recommendations from other physicians at the time, not Lind. [32] In creating a narrative that characterized Lind as the heroic and dedicated conqueror of scurvy, Hudson and Herbert perhaps oversimplified so much that they attributed success to Lind for unrelated events.

The writings of scurvy historians from 1939 to 1956 focused on great Western success stories about important figures whose hard work and scientific ambition conquered scurvy. In a shift from the macro, quantitative timelines of early perspectives, these histories instead used personal accounts and narrative structures to tell engaging stories about great men. In the 1960s, a new group of scurvy historians challenged these narratives by questioning the influence and success of Captain Cook and Dr. Lind.

The Sociohistorical Revolution (1961 to 1975)

The 1960s marked a third shift in how historians discussed scurvy. No longer intrigued by narratives of great men and Western conquest, historians critiqued decisions and mistakes that prolonged scurvy with new considerations for social class and authority. This shift occurred alongside sociocultural revolutions throughout the 1960s and 1970s that questioned national narratives, power, and authority.[33] Pushing back against the micro-scale narratives in western success histories, historians located their research within broader institutions and governments.

One of the first notable scurvy historians of the 1960s was Christopher Lloyd, who openly criticized previous historians for attributing scurvy’s conquest to Captain Cook and the British Navy. In his first article, “The Introduction of Lemon Juice as a Cure for Scurvy” (1961), Lloyd first established that effective treatments existed before Cook and Lind, using Sir Richard Hawkins’s recommendation for lemon juice during the 1500s as evidence.[34] In his view, these effective treatments were either lost or forgotten in a series of bewildering scientific miscommunications that reflected governmental ignorance for the lower class—the class most affected by scurvy. Lloyd argued that Captain Cook’s failure to identify and recommend effective treatments against scurvy was partly to blame for the disease’s continuance throughout the 1700s despite effective treatments being known.

Lloyd described Cook’s Endeavor, sailed under the advice of Doctors Macbride and Hutchinson, as an opportunity for Cook to experiment with potential antiscorbutics including malt and sauerkraut. Cook was not a scientist, and his haphazard experimental data led him to incorrectly conclude malt was an effective antiscorbutic, a recommendation soon endorsed by the British Navy.[35] At the same time, Lind clinically proved and published that lemon rob treated scurvy. In Lloyd’s view, the British Navy overlooked Lind’s findings in favor of Cook due to the different social class and positions of the two men, and their ignorance did not stop there. LLoyd wrote that, in the matter of preventing scurvy, “Seamen have always been a neglected class… the record is one of apathy and ignorance.”[36] Here, Lloyd offered attention to the relationship between social class, authority, and scurvy, reflecting a departure from previous narrative histories.

In his second article, The Conquest of Scurvy” (1965), Lloyd sharpened his accusations against the British Navy. He accused them of not only apathy and ignorance, but outright medical prejudice in refusing to accept Lind’s recommendations.[37] He used the “ill-advised” swapping of lemons for limes in the 1800s as proof of the navy’s continued, deliberate unwillingness to recommend Lind’s findings.[38] This second article, in criticizing authorities’ decisions about scurvy rations, again exhibited a shift to broader social focuses that discredited second-wave success histories.

Ronald L. Ives, another notable scurvy researcher from the sociohistorical period, used examples of effective indigenous cures prior to Lind and Cook’s 1700s experiments to question Western success narratives. In his 1970 article, “The Lost Discovery of Corporal Antonio Luis: A Desert Cure for Scurvy,” Ives claimed medical histories have left out antiscorbutic practices which existed for centuries in various territories.[39] In support of this claim, Ives used medieval Arab Literature that prescribed naranj as an important fruit for disease prevention. He also referenced Captain Cartier’s 1535 voyage to Canada where, upon arrival, the indigenous resident Damagaya cured sailors dying from scurvy with a spruce-infused beverage. Lastly, he cited Corporal Antonio Luis’s use of prickly pear cactus fruit to cure himself of scurvy during a Spanish voyage to Mazatlán in the early 1600s.[40] Though Luis reported his discovery to his Captain, the information appeared to be lost or ignored after the voyage.[41] Ives’s three examples of pre-1700s scurvy treatments dismantled previous arguments about great Western figures in the 1700s as scurvy’s first conquerors. Though Ives focused on adding context compared to Lloyd’s directed attacks, both historians’ research challenged previous historical narratives.

Leonard G. Wilson, the final notable historian from this period, expanded upon Lloyd’s considerations of class and authority. In “The Clinical Definition of Scurvy and the Discovery of Vitamin C” (1975), Wilson gave more attention to the lower class groups most affected by the disease. He wrote “Perhaps the most characteristic feature of [scurvy] was that it tended to be an epidemic disease occurring among groups… subjected by circumstances to a restricted diet, usually accompanied by other hardships.” [42] Wilson’s use of a term like “subjected” illustrates new examinations of class and oppression within the context of scurvy. To evidence the relationship between scurvy and oppression, Wilson referenced the mutiny of Spithead in 1797, where sailors reported they rebelled due to the inaccessibility of lemon juice on the ship.[43] Through this example, Wilson brought ideas of class conflict into scurvy discussions, which differed from Lloyd and Ives’s broader social considerations.

Wilson went a step further than Lloyd in refuting important figures like Captain Cook and Dr. Lind, arguing that Lind also received too much credit for his discovery. Though Lind found an effective treatment, he failed to understand scurvy’s cause, did not know the specifics of the curative quality in citrus, and botched recipes for lemon rob by boiling the lemon juice (which also boiled out vitamin C).[44] Wilson argued that Lind’s half understanding of scurvy prevented the British Navy from supplying effective rations, evidenced by the later use of less-ascorbic limes in place of lemons due to the unclear differences in their antiscorbutic properties.[45] To Wilson, credit for solving scurvy could not be attributed to any figure in the 1700s or 1800s. Rather, it was the Lister Institute, whose research fully explained the causes, progression and treatment of scurvy, who deserved the credit.[46] Wilson’s arguments mirrored Lloyd and Ives’s beliefs that western success narratives failed to tell scurvy’s full story.

Historians of the sociohistorical revolutionary period were critical in their analyses of previous research and discredited narratives of Western success. Their arguments considered authoritative failures and ignorance toward lower social classes which, in their view, prolonged scurvy during the Early Modern period. Later historians would argue these historians went too far in discrediting 1700s contributors, forgetting how elusive scurvy truly was and oversimplifying its history in the opposite direction.

Modern Perspectives (2000s to NOW)

Modern scurvy histories vary widely in focus and purpose, but frequently add cultural, racial, and material dimensions. These new dimensions, inspired by emerging academic tracks in African American studies, material culture, and comparative history, helped untangle scurvy’s association with mainly white, European sailors. Today’s historians have deepened scurvy’s history in discussing both its broader cultural impact and the daily experiences of its victims with a new emphasis on mental and emotional symptoms.

Sowande’ Mustakeem, a historian and professor of African American studies at Washington University, examined scurvy’s relationship with race and slavery in her essay “I Never Have Such a Sickly Ship Before: Diet, Disease, and Mortality in 18th Century Atlantic Slaving Voyages” (2008). She argued that enslaved scorbutics faced particular obstacles to diagnosis and treatment. Some scurvy symptoms, like bruising and burst vessels, were mistaken for physical trauma from the beatings enslaved victims often suffered.[47] Additionally, enslavers were apathetic to the health of the enslaved, causing scorbutics’ symptoms to worsen without diagnosis.[48] In rare cases when enslavers correctly diagnosed scurvy, they scarcely provided effective treatment, instead opting for experimental procedures—administered without consent.[49] Mustakeem wrote, “Death was a constant reality. As such, the wooden decks of slave ships became floating morgues representing the only coffins deceased Africans would ever receive, until their decaying bodies were thrown overboard and devoured by sharks.” Her attention to scorbutics’ experiences within larger discussions of slavery differed strongly from previous focuses on great men, politics, and timelines. Mustakeem claimed that slavery and medical histories required attention to personal stories frequently ignored in favor of “static numerical formulas.” [50] In this way, she positioned herself as the antithesis of the quantitative “Early Perspectives” historians.

Mathieu Torck, like Mustakeem, examined non-Western histories of scurvy in his analysis of Asian outbreaks. In Avoiding the Dire Straits (2014), Torck investigated Eastern medical responses to scurvy and their success. Shortly before his research, Ghent University published findings of genetic variations that increased Asian susceptibility to scurvy. This finding partly inspired Torck’s research. He argued that, with this genetic susceptibility, Asian territories should have experienced more outbreaks than Europe and sought explanations for why that was not the case.[51] To explain the unexpected discrepancy, Torck focused on cultural historical comparisons of Europe and Asia.

Torck first examined the experience of scurvy among seafaring indigenous populations. He found that, despite spending long durations at sea, many indigenous communities encountered scurvy much less frequently than European sailors in similar positions. Torck concluded that this was due to differences in foods brought aboard sea vessels. As evidence, he referenced Polynesian “essential” rations of fruit pastes, sweet potatoes, and fern root cakes, all of which contained vitamin C and did not spoil quickly.[52] In contrast, European sailors’ rations lacked these antiscorbutic qualities, which Torck felt partially explained the discrepancy.

Torck next compared the scarcity of Chinese scurvy cases to Europe’s massive outbreaks during the Age of Exploration. Torck believed different medical ideologies, treatments, and food culture explained the disparity in case numbers. Eastern physicians understood scurvy as a form of blocked qi, or the stagnation of the two energies flowing through the body.[53] In their view, yin, or cold energy, festered in the lower body causing heavy legs and difficulty walking while yang, heat energy, burned in the upper body forming stomach and mouth ulcers. Torck discovered scurvy treatment plans from Chinese surgeon Tao Qilin that prescribed horse milk to scorbutics, since its pure yang energy could jumpstart qi flow.[54] Interestingly, modern analyses have shown horse milk is high in vitamin C. Another prescribed medicine, Qi Flow Beverage, incorporated fruits like ginger and oranges which are also high in vitamin C. Outside of scurvy treatment plans, Torck examined the antiscorbutic qualities of everyday Chinese food culture, with even daily tea drinking and pickled vegetables working to prevent outbreaks.[55] Torck offered one last explanation for the high prevalence in Europe. He argued that since European ships were operated by crews of “low social status…considerations about a well-balanced diet did not come into play.” [56] He compared this to respected Chinese seafaring crews, who received better quality rations. This emphasis on comparative and cultural analyses of scurvy are traits of modern historiography that contrast with previous great men narratives and political focuses.

Torck criticized previous groups of scurvy historians for oversimplifying the complexities of its discovery. He argued that no simple explanation for scurvy’s discovery, treatment, or conquest existed, and that this was not the fault of any one figure or government. Instead, the mysterious circumstances that surrounded nutrition as a whole during the Age of Exploration prevented scientists from understanding micronutrient deficiencies.[57] Additionally, obstacles to medical record sharing and the lack of health institutions prevented global prescriptions of scurvy treatments. Torck wrote, “many people tackled the problem of scurvy, but they were scattered throughout various countries, subject to the vicissitudes of political change and dependent on the professional authority and financial space that was allotted to them.”[58] In this way, Torck argued against the oversimplified Western success histories and against the sociohistorical writings of the 1960s which described Captain Cook, the British Navy, or Dr. James Lind as failures in solving scurvy. In Torck’s view, these figures did not fail but simply worked with the information available at the time.

Jonathan Lamb’s Scurvy: The Disease of Discovery (2016) offered perhaps the most extensive addition to scurvy history. Lamb’s explorations fell into three categories: the debate of who solved scurvy, symptoms and the scorbutic experience, and scurvy’s broader impact on seafaring and intellectual culture, specifically through poetry and fiction.

Firstly, in addressing the issue of who solved scurvy, Lamb made a similar argument to Torck. Narrative histories of the 1930s were too simple and so were the 1960s arguments that discredited scientists and physicians for their exploratory efforts. He wrote, “Efforts to integrate the fragments of history into a triumphal narrative make for rousing claims but partial arguments” with decades of stagnation and confusion conveniently ignored to compile an easier narrative.[59] Lamb contended that 1700s scurvy scientists and physicians did make important, progressive strides in public health, exemplified by Lind’s successful clinical trials and Captain Cook’s focus on warm, dry clothes and sleep.[60] In this way, Lamb added more complexity to the opposing stances of 1930s and 1960s scurvy historians.

Lamb next explored the symptoms and lived experience of scorbutics, diving further into mental and emotional effects than previous historians. Onlookers described scurvy victims as lazy, dirty, putrid smelling and grossly disfigured.[61] To Lamb, this contributed to an aura of humiliation for scorbutics where “Commanders were ashamed” to report occurrences of scurvy, often choosing to label it as a different illness.[62] These factors contributed to an incredibly isolating experience for many scurvy victims who were stowed away to avoid decreasing the morale of surrounding crewmates. Lamb also discussed the personality and emotional changes brought on by scurvy due to the brain’s disintegration.[63] According to Lamb, brain malfunctions explained reports of scorbutics’ rapidly-changing moods and heightened emotional sensitivity. Emotionally vulnerable scorbutics experienced hallucinations and intense, desperate longings for home, a phenomenon Lamb called “Scorbutic Nostalgia.”[64] Lamb argued that scorbutics, already physically isolated due to their appearance and smell, were also emotionally isolated by their inability to talk or to describe their deteriorating state of mind. This attention to the scorbutic emotional and mental experience deepened discussions of scurvy symptoms compared to previous histories.

Lastly, Lamb argued that scurvy was not tethered to any one individual victim, rather permeated into outer culture. He claimed it seeped into the emotional atmosphere of scorbutic ships, with confused sailors watching their scorbutic crewmates rot into the shipboards.[65] As evidence, he referenced Thomas Trotter’s limit of ten uses per slaving vessel before the effects of human rot destroyed the wooden panels. Lamb argued that scurvy went beyond scorbutic vessels as well. In his argument, “Scorbutic Nostalgia” and intense isolation shaped the written culture of the Age of Exploration, especially within romance novels like Bacon’s New Atlantis, which followed the intense and emotional discovery of a utopia.[66] Other authors, like Kames, were interested in the scorbutics’ “peculiar” perceptions of everyday realities. Lamb claimed gothic writing styles that emerged during the eighteenth century relied on the inability of an isolated narrator to situate themselves in any one environment, which he believed modeled scorbutic hallucinations.[67] He wrote “[in gothic romance] there is no orderly succession of events, and no community is standing by to offer comfort, advice, or models of behavior.” Lamb’s cultural shift in historicizing scurvy was distinguished from past attachments to stories of great men and politics.

The modern perspectives on scurvy have examined many facets of the disease, with a new emphasis on cultural considerations, comparative analysis, and lived experience. These histories have allowed for deeper examinations of scurvy and provide opportunities for future research to build upon these new dimensions.

Conclusion

As this essay argues, the history of scurvy has narrowed, shifted, broadened, and deepened in the century since historians first began writing about it. These historiographical shifts occurred for a variety of reasons dependent on the utility of scurvy research and the perspective of the historian. In the “Early Perspectives” period, researchers like Dr. Hirsch and Henderson Smith functionally studied scurvy’s correlation with food, looking to understand the still-mysterious disease. As a result, their research was macro-scaled, quantitative, and focused on timelines. In the “Narratives” period, wartime historians saw Western success stories within the Age of Exploration and revisited scurvy with this perspective in mind. In their writing, previously ignored physicians and captains became important historical figures that exemplified the Western man’s great contributions. In the 1960s, sociocultural revolutions caused historians to question these narratives, and they revisited the topic of scurvy again to craft a response. As a result, their histories featured new inspections of social class and authority. And finally, modern historians, inspired by new academic tracks, deepened scurvy’s history, giving more attention to lived experience and culture. Mustakeem and Lamb, with their focus on physical and emotional obstacles faced by scorbutics, and Torck, with his comparative analysis of food culture, added complexity to scurvy’s history and set the stage for future researchers to continue expanding upon their conversations. With emerging nutritional research on modern diets and nutritional deficiencies from ultra-processed meals, it will certainly be interesting to see what perspectives and uses scurvy researchers write from in the future.

Notes

  1. Mustafa Gandhi, “Scurvy: Rediscovering a Forgotten Disease,” Diseases 11, no. 2 (2023): 78, https://doi.org/10.3390/diseases11020078. ↑

  2. Jonathan Lamb, Scurvy: The Disease of Discovery. (Princeton University Press, 2016), 49-50, Perlego. ↑

  3. Gandhi, “Forgotten Disease,” 78. ↑

  4. Mathieu Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 1st ed. (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014), 18, Perlego. ↑

  5. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 38. ↑

  6. Christopher Lloyd, “The Introduction of Lemon Juice as a Cure for Scurvy,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 35, no. 2 (1961): 129, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44446780. ↑

  7. Alice Henderson Smith, A Historical Inquiry into the Efficacy of Lime Juice for the Prevention and Cure of Scurvy. (Oxford House, 1919), 1-2, https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-503101256/view?partId=nla.obj-503101734#page/n2/mode/1up. ↑

  8. Leonard G. Wilson, “The Clinical Definition of Scurvy and the Discovery of Vitamin C,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 30, no. 1 (1975): 54, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24622969. ↑

  9. Sarah Maza, Thinking About History. (The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 10, Kindle for Web. ↑

  10. August Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, Volume 2 – Chronic, Infective, Toxic, Parasitic, Septic and Constitutional Diseases, 2nd ed. (New Sydenham Society, 1883), 561, https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=X6YL6yaKVKoC&pg=GBS.PR2&hl=en. ↑

  11. August Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, Volume 1 – Acute Infective Diseases, 2nd ed. (New Sydenham Society, 1883), 2, https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=vUkJAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PR2&hl=en. ↑

  12. Hirsch, Handbook Volume 2, 511. ↑

  13. Hirsch, Handbook Volume 2, 512. ↑

  14. Hirsch, Handbook Volume 2, 513. ↑

  15. Hirsch, Handbook Volume 2, 530. ↑

  16. Hirsch, Handbook Volume 2, 513. ↑

  17. Henderson Smith, Efficacy of Lime Juice, 1. ↑

  18. Henderson Smith, Efficacy of Lime Juice, 1. ↑

  19. Henderson Smith, Efficacy of Lime Juice, 1-2. ↑

  20. Henderson Smith, Efficacy of Lime Juice, 2. ↑

  21. Alfred F. Hess, Scurvy: Past and Present. (J.B. Lippincott Company, 1920), 18, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Scurvy_Past_and_Present/samZAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=history+books+about+scurvy&printsec=frontcover. ↑

  22. Hess, Scurvy, 2. ↑

  23. Hess, Scurvy, 4. ↑

  24. Hess, Scurvy, 4. ↑

  25. Hugh Carrington, Life of Captain Cook. (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1939), https://archive.org/details/lifeofcaptaincoo0000hugh_i9k1/page/n9/mode/1up. See also: Surgeon Rear-Admiral John R. Muir, The Life and Achievement of Captain James Cook. (Blackie, 1939). ↑

  26. A.P. Meiklejohn, “The Curious Obscurity of Dr. James Lind,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 9, no. 3 (1954): 304, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24619189. ↑

  27. Meiklejohn, “Curious Obscurity,” 304-309. ↑

  28. A. Edward A. Hudson and Arthur Herbert, “James Lind: His Contributions to Shipboard Sanitation,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 11, no. 1 (1956): 1, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24619189. ↑

  29. Hudson and Herbert, “James Lind,” 1. ↑

  30. Hudson and Herbert, “James Lind,” 6-7. ↑

  31. Hudson and Herbert, “James Lind,” 11. ↑

  32. Lloyd, “Introduction of Lemon Juice,” 124. ↑

  33. Maza, Thinking About History, 13. ↑

  34. Lloyd, “Introduction of Lemon Juice,” 123. ↑

  35. Lloyd, “Introduction of Lemon Juice,” 123-125.. ↑

  36. Lloyd, “Introduction of Lemon Juice,” 132. ↑

  37. Christopher Lloyd, “The Conquest of Scurvy,” The British Journal for the History of Science 1, no. 4 (1963): 357, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4024907. ↑

  38. Lloyd, “Conquest of Scurvy,” 362. ↑

  39. Ronald L. Ives, “The Lost Discovery of Corporal Antonio Luis: A Desert Cure for Scurvy,” The Journal of Arizona History 11, no. 2 (1970):104, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41695553. See page 104 for more information about Ives’ claim, the Arabic naranj and Damagay’s spruce-infused beverage. ↑

  40. Ives, “Lost Discovery of Corporal Antonio Luis,” 106. ↑

  41. Ives, “Lost Discovery of Corporal Antonio Luis,” 106. ↑

  42. Wilson, “Clinical Definition of Scurvy,” 40. ↑

  43. Wilson, “Clinical Definition of Scurvy,” 45-46. ↑

  44. Wilson, “Clinical Definition of Scurvy,” 58-59. ↑

  45. Wilson, “Clinical Definition of Scurvy,” 55. ↑

  46. Wilson, “Clinical Definition of Scurvy,” 54-59. See page 54 for more information about the Lister experiments and 59 for more information about Wilson’s feelings on deserved credit. ↑

  47. Sowande’ Mustakeem, “’I Never Have Such a Sickly Ship Before’: Diet, Disease, and Mortality in 18th-Century Atlantic Slaving Voyages,” The Journal of African American History 93, no. 4 (2008): 484, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610019. ↑

  48. Mustakeem, “Sickly Ship,” 485. ↑

  49. Mustakeem, “Sickly Ship,” 490-491. ↑

  50. Mustakeem, “Sickly Ship,” 476. ↑

  51. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 2. ↑

  52. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 50. ↑

  53. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 65. ↑

  54. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 70-77. See pages 70-71 for more information about horse milk nutritional content and page 77 for information about Qi Flow Beverage. ↑

  55. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 101 for more information about pickled vegetables and 226 for more about tea. ↑

  56. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 248. ↑

  57. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 39-40. ↑

  58. Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits, 40. ↑

  59. Lamb, Scurvy, 8. ↑

  60. Lamb, Scurvy, 7-8. ↑

  61. Lamb, Scurvy, 12. ↑

  62. Lamb, Scurvy, 7. See also page 19 for more information on crew morale. ↑

  63. Lamb, Scurvy, 13-15. ↑

  64. Lamb, Scurvy, 23. See also page 26 for more information about mental isolation. ↑

  65. Lamb, Scurvy, 49-50. ↑

  66. Lamb, Scurvy, 217-218. Page 217 holds more information on New Atlantis while 218 discusses Kames. ↑

  67. Lamb, Scurvy, 224. This page also discussed the specific relationship between gothic romance and scurvy. ↑

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