Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
6
CONQUERING THE GREAT SOUTH SEA
Among those who read the published accounts of the
Centurion's
voyage was Dr James Lind, a naval surgeon. During several voyages he
had had plenty of opportunity to observe and to try to treat cases of
scurvy but it was the appalling loss of life during Anson's expedition
that drove him to make a serious study of the disease. Between 1748
and 1754, when he was living in Edinburgh, he gathered information
from mariners and other doctors and experimented with various pos-
sible remedies. The result was
A Treatise on the Scurvy
which was
dedicated to Anson and published in 1754. It was soon reissued, was
translated into French and aroused great interest in the internation-
al maritime community. Lind followed it three years later with
An Es-
say on the most effectual means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in
the Royal Navy,
which contained observations on the prevention and
treatment of scurvy, typhus and malaria as well as pioneering ideas
on hygiene and disinfectants. Lind's work sets him firmly in the top
rank of eighteenth century medical researchers and it is little short of
a tragedy that the Admiralty did not adopt his recommendations un-
til 1795, the year after his death.
This, however, did not prevent individual captains and ships'
surgeons from trying the new methods. Lind knew nothing about vit-
amin C deficiency but he did realise that scurvy was the result of poor
diet and he deduced that it could be avoided by ensuring that seamen
were plentifully supplied with citrus fruit, onions, vegetables or lem-
on juice. As his ideas filtered through to naval commanders of various
nations the incidence of scurvy fell dramatically and other shipboard
diseases were brought under greater control.
