
Scott and Scurvy (2010) - mbrubeck
http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
======
kazinator
> _But in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cure for scurvy was
> lost_

Shit got lost in the olden days! No Google, no Wikipedia ...

Mozart only learned about J. S. Bach a few years before his death. Amazingly,
he spent his entire career ignorant about the important works of his great
predecessor.

Today, thanks to modern information technology, the only professionals who
remain ignorant about prior work in their field are software developers.

~~~
joshguthrie
>the only professionals who remain ignorant about prior work in their field
are software developers

Throwing that much salt will be useful for my journey on the S.S. Reinventing
The Wheel, thanks!

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evmar
This has been posted on HN 9(!) times, but I still enjoy rereading it.

For more discussion, this posting had the most comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1174912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1174912)

~~~
idlewords
It pleases me every time my article about how knowledge gets forgotten is
innocently reposted here.

------
toolslive
The whole scurvy related set of anecdotes are quite coloured by language bias.
German folklore contains a different set of anecdotes regarding scurvy, with
the solution based on sauerkraut iso citrus fruits.

Totally unrelated, but I have seen the same thing in mathematics. The same
theorem being named to different mathematicians depending on the language in
which you learn the theorem (French or English or Russian)

~~~
anon4
If only the british had adopted sauerkraut or other kind of acidic preserve
high in Vit C as the cure for scurvy, Scott's mission might have been less of
a failure.

