[14] Lemon juice was known to be a remedy for scurvy far superior
to all others 200 years ago, as appears by the writings of Woodall.
His work is entitled “The Surgeon’s Mate, or Military and Domestic
Medicine. By John Woodall, Master in Surgery London, 1636,” p. 165. In
1600, Commodore Lancaster sailed from England with three other ships
for the Cape of Good Hope, on the 2d of April, and arrived in Saldanha
Bay on the 1st of August, the commodore’s own ship being in perfect
health, from the administration of three table-spoonsfull of lemon
juice every morning to each of his men, whereas the other ships were so
sickly as to be unmanageable for want of hands, and the commander was
obliged to send men on board to take in their sails and hoist out their
boats. (Purchas’s Pilgrim, vol. i. p. 149.) A Fellow of the college,
and an eminent practitioner, in 1753 published a tract on sea scurvy,
in which he adverts to the superior virtue of this medicine; and Mr. A.
Baird, surgeon of the Hector sloop of war, states, that from what he
had seen of its effects on board of that ship, he “thinks he shall not
be accused of presumption in pronouncing it, if properly administered,
a _most infallible remedy_, both in the cure and prevention of
scurvy.” (Vide Trotter’s Medicina Nautica.) The precautions adopted
by captain Cook in his celebrated voyages, had fully demonstrated by
their complete success the practicability of keeping scurvy under in
the longest voyages, but a uniform system of prevention throughout the
service was still deficient.
It is to the representations of Dr. Blair and sir Gilbert Blane, in
their capacity of commissioners of the board for sick and wounded
seamen, in 1795, we believe, that its _systematic introduction into
nautical diet_, by a general order of the admiralty, is owing. The
effect of this wise measure (taken, of course, in conjunction with the
general causes of improved health,) may be estimated from the following
facts:--In 1780, the number of cases of scurvy received into Haslar
hospital was 1457; in 1806 _one_ only, and in 1807 _one_. There are now
many surgeons in the navy who have never seen the disease.
[15] Throughout France the conductor is recognised as a most
valuable and useful instrument; and in those parts of Germany where
thunder-storms are still more common and tremendous they are become
nearly universal. In Munich there is hardly a modern house unprovided
with them, and of a much better construction than ours--several copper
wires twisted into a rope.
[16] We have been informed by an eminent physician in Rome, (Dr.
Morichini) that a vast quantity of the sulphate of quinine is
manufactured there and consumed in the Campagna, with an evident effect
in mitigating the severity of the malarious complaints which affect its
inhabitants.
[17] Dr. Johnson, Memoirs of the Medical Society, vol. v.
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