
Scott and Scurvy: How the cure for scurvy was lost - mark_h
http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
======
yummyfajitas
_But in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cure for scurvy was
lost. The story of how this happened is a striking demonstration of the
problem of induction, and how progress in one field of study can lead to
unintended steps backward in another._

This isn't the only time progress in one field leads to steps backward in
another.

Once upon a time, the Romans knew the cause of plague: evil spirits. Evil
spirits lived in the bodies of the living and the dead, but would occasionally
jump from a sick person to a healthy person The health person would become
sick, and further spread evil spirits.

The Romans knew how to prevent the spread of evil spirits: isolate the sick
and the dead, and even burn the bodies. They even weaponized it, using the
bodies of those that died of plague as a biological weapon.

Once we learned that evil spirits don't exist, we threw away this theory of
disease. Instead, we believed that plague (much like flies, mold and other
such unpleasantness) was spontaneously generated in matter. It wasn't until
much Pasteur that we discovered the Romans were 90% correct.

~~~
neilk
Is it correct to say that the English understanding of scurvy really went
backward?

They started with an incorrect theory (acidic fruit stops scurvy) which was
later falsified (so does fresh meat). Their progress towards the truth is
quite direct, a testament to good record-keeping and communication.

In contrast, the remedies lurch wildly around in effectiveness -- because they
weren't properly tested, in isolation from other factors. Nor were they ever
retested, even when they changed to the limes. That seems to be where the real
failures occurred.

~~~
idlewords
It did go backward. The 18th century concept of the disease was as a dietary
deficiency, while the 20th century concept was chronic food poisoning.

One point I was trying to stress is that "properly tested, in isolation from
other factors" depends a great deal on your mental model of the thing you're
testing.

~~~
neilk
I originally thought you were wrong about this, because a lot of the other
articles seemed to suggest they only understood the citrus connection as a
cure for some mysterious disease. Which would have made it the wrong theory,
but coincidentally the right practice.

But at least according to Wikipedia, there were plenty of people who
understood scurvy as a dietary deficiency, even in the 1600s. They thought it
was more about acidity, but that's close enough. So, I was wrong and you are
right.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy>

~~~
idlewords
The wikipedia article is kind of iffy, I would recommend this great overview
instead:

<http://idlewords.com/sailors_scurvy.pdf>

Or 'The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C' by Kenneth Carpenter if you want to
really dig in.

------
swolchok
Of the four conditions he mentioned (depression, autism, hypertension,
obesity), I don't suppose there is evidence to suggest that, I don't know,
regular exercise would cure at least two?

~~~
warfangle
At least three - in some people. Regular exercise has been shown[1] to reduce
the signs of depression in some people (but, obviously, not others).

From what I know of hypertension (not much), it's more of a disposition - if
you treat yourself poorly, and you have a disposition towards it, you might
develop it later in life. Exercise and diet, of course, are preventative - but
not a cure; once you are diagnosed, it's like a warning sign from your body
flashing "hey you, be careful, you're hurting me!"

And it's not just regular exercise, a balanced diet is a must. If all you eat
is corn (factory farmed meat; processed foods; just about everything cheap in
the grocery store) - but you run on a treadmill 30 minutes a day - you're
still going to put on weight.

[1] [http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression-and-
exercise/MH0...](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression-and-
exercise/MH00043)

~~~
wazoox
I suffer from hypertension. I'm not currently fat and haven't been for some
years, I run 35 km every week or more, but I still need the pills (with their
nasty side-effects).

------
thristian
Everybody knows that lime juice cures scurvy, and that the English navy
figured out the whole thing centuries ago, and like most things "everybody
knows", it's largely wrong.

Thanks for submitting this - it was a fascinating read.

~~~
ubernostrum
Well, lime juice _can_ prevent or cure scurvy, it's just that other things
have more vitamin C. And the British navy _did_ use lime juice. So neither of
those is shown to be "wrong" here; instead, we're shown more of the story than
these two facts alone can give us.

------
gcv
Fantastic and fascinating read. Thanks for posting this. I had no idea that
lime juice only contains a fraction of the vitamin C content of lemon juice. I
wonder how grapefruit fares.

~~~
idlewords
Fresh lime juice actually has something like 2/3 the vitamin C of lemon juice.
Grapefruit is comparable to lime. Check out table II:
[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_pdf/v18/p36-38.pd...](http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_pdf/v18/p36-38.pdf)

For some reason, the 1918 tests showed fresh lime juice to have a quarter the
antiscorbutic activity of lemon juice (when you fed it to guinea pigs, it took
four times as much to prevent scurvy). It's possible the vitamin is less
bioavailable in limes, but I don't know the research at all.

And of course the actual lime juice from navy and merchant ships was much
worse than that.

------
arethuza
If anyone is interested in polar exploration I strongly recommend "Barrow's
Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy":

[http://www.amazon.com/Barrows-Boys-Stirring-Fortitude-
Outrig...](http://www.amazon.com/Barrows-Boys-Stirring-Fortitude-
Outright/dp/0802137946)

------
FlorinAndrei
> They had a theory of the disease that made sense, fit the evidence, but was
> utterly wrong. They had arrived at the idea of an undetectable substance in
> their food, present in trace quantities, with a direct causative
> relationship to scurvy, but they thought of it in terms of a poison to
> avoid. In one sense, the additional leap required for a correct
> understanding was very small. In another sense, it would have required a
> kind of Copernican revolution in their thinking.

Fascinating.

------
extension
I predict that we will eventually come to know of a few dozen different
nutrient deficiencies, lifestyle habits, childhood developmental factors,
neurological defects, neurotic thought patterns, and other random things that
collectively account for nearly all cases of what we now call "depression".

These explanations are not widely pursued because there are no practical and
rigorous experiments to verify them (no ethical way to control psychological
experiments) and they don't lead to practical solutions (society does not have
the wherewithall to carry out the remedies).

However, as this story illustrates, "we don't know" is never an acceptable
answer when we demand from science a solution to an immediate and dire
problem. The confidence of experts is fairly constant over time, while only
their degree of correctness improves.

------
Luyt
The same thing happened with concrete. The Romans knew how to make concrete,
but after the collapse of the empire this knowledge was lost, only to be
reinvented in the Victorian industrialist age.

------
isleyaardvark
In another irony, the "Worst Journey in the World" that is mentioned in the
article was based on another incorrect scientific theory: recapitulation
theory. They thought the emperor penguin eggs would reveal more about
evolutionary theory than they actually did. (According to Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World#An_epilogue))

------
bluedanieru
Couldn't help but notice this:

 _Eat a [polar] bear liver every few weeks and scurvy will be the least of
your problems._

Yes, it will be the least of your problems, because you will be dead. Polar
bear liver is highly toxic (30-90 grams of it will kill a man).

An ironic error, considering the article.

~~~
eru
What's so toxic about it?

~~~
curtis
Massive amounts of vitamin A.

~~~
noilly
if the world ends, don't eat carnivore livers

~~~
barry-cotter
If the world ends don't eat a carnivore that eats carnivores that occasionally
eat animals. Generally a good idea anyway since most carnivores taste
goddamned awful.

