Short history of how the world addressed the problem of scurvy

This is an excerpt from the novel series LIARS! Vol. 2: Escape to Insanity. Nanook, the Eagle Scout on the North Pole expedition is talking with Father Vincent. Nanook is in Italics.

“The Journal of the American Medical Association had a summary of the battle to fight scurvy among sailors. It said that, over the last four centuries, scurvy was the main threat to health for naval crews. The loss of life was huge. In 1497, when Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, 100 out of a crew of 160 died of scurvy. In 1601, after investigating suspected connections to diet, Captain James Lancaster, on a voyage from England to India, experimented with lemon juice as a cure. He had four ships. On one ship, he gave crew members three teaspoons of lemon juice every day in addition to regular rations. Upon arrival in India, none of the sailors drinking lemon juice died. But! 110 out of 278 sailors on the other three ships, who were not taking lemon juice died of scurvy.”

“Wow! Amazing story. So that’s how they solved the problem. I never knew that.”

“Whoa, dear boy! That is not how they solved the problem. The aristocrats and religious people in charge of the British Navy refused to accept the results – total denial. 146 years later, Navy physician James Lind performed a randomized trial of six treatments on 12 sailors already sick. Citrus fruits cured the two sailors who were given them in six days.”

“Wow! So, it took that long to clear the denial – and a formal medical trial. Unbelievable.”

“Whoa! Who said anyone responded to that study. Remember, this was still a time when sickness was thought by the, quote, ‘medical scholars’ of the day to be due to the devil. Finally, in 1795, the British Navy ordered citrus fruits be part of the Navy diet.”

“I can’t believe this. Thousands of sailors must have died needlessly.”

“Nanook. Hundreds of thousands of sailors died! British records from just the Seven Year’s War with the American Colonies from 1756 to 1763 show 133,708 sailors died from disease, mostly scurvy out of 184,899 total!”

“OK. Wow. But it was finally done!”

I looked at Father V who was staring at me with a smile.

“Oh naïve young boy. No, it was far from done. The Navy wasn’t the only force on the sea. They were greatly outnumbered by civilian sailors. It took the British Board of Trade 70 more years, to 1865, to order its use on merchant ships. Look. The point I’m trying to make is that humans, even in the face of 100% proof of effectiveness, even when human life is at stake, can stay in total denial.”

“I hear you. But this is really, really hard to digest. I mean, most of the human race depends on our leaders to do the right thing.”

“But this is also denial. The leadership by people in authority has been shown over and over and over again to be next to useless. People grab on to shreds of success and convince themselves that success is always there. It’s another example of the denial defense.”

“OK. But I have a question. Didn’t Captain Cook make long voyages during his ‘voyages of discovery’ in 1768? He even came up here to Alaska.”

“Totally true. But Captain Cook was an example of someone who only paid attention to what he observed. He was a scientist before his time. He put the latest astronomy, navigation and medical discoveries right into use. He didn’t know about any of the citrus cures. But he did see the results of sauerkraut, which also contains vitamin C. It also stores better. He only lost three sailors to scurvy on his three voyages.”

“You’re right. This is so unbelievable. It’s practically impossible for me to accept the gross incompetence you keep pointing out to me.”

“But, it’s not incompetence. It’s arrogance and superstition. All of these people had the ability to organize the information needed to make these discoveries. They didn’t use those abilities because they were psychologically blocking themselves from using them.”