A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2Cook, James
History
A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2
Cook, James
Antarctica; Oceania -- Discovery and exploration -- Early works to 1800; Voyages around the world -- Early works to 1800
It hath also been asserted, that men living on shore will be affected
with the scurvy, though they have never been confined to salted meats;
but of this I have never known any instance, except in those who breathed
a marshy air, or what was otherwise putrid, and who wanted exercise,
fruits, and green vegetables: under such circumstances it must be
granted, that the humours will corrupt in the same manner, though not in
the same degree, with those of mariners. Thus, in the late war, when
Sisinghurst Castle in Kent was filled with French prisoners, the scurvy
broke out among them, notwithstanding they had never been served with
salted victuals in England; but had daily had an allowance of fresh meat,
and of bread in proportion, though without greens or any other vegetable.
The surgeon who attended them, and from whom I received this information,
having formerly been employed in the navy, was the better able to judge
of the disorder and to cure it. Besides the deficiency of herbs, he
observed that the wards were foul and crowded, the house damp (from a
moat that surrounded it) and that the bounds allotted for taking the air
were so small, and in wet weather so sloughy, that the men seldom went
out. He added, that a representation having been made, he had been
empowered to furnish the prisoners with roots and greens for boiling in
their soup, and to quarter the sick in a neighbouring village in a dry
situation, with liberty to go out for air and exercise; and that by these
means they had all quickly recovered. It is probable, that the scurvy
sooner appeared among these strangers, from their having been taken at
sea, and consequently more disposed to the disease. My informer further
acquainted me, that in the lower and wetter parts of that county, where
some of his practice lay, he had now and then met with slighter cases of
the scurvy among the common people; such, he said, as lived the whole
winter on salted bacon, without fermented liquors, greens, or fruit, a
few apples excepted; but, he remarked, that in the winters following a
plentiful growth of apples, those peasants were visibly less liable to
the disorder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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