Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
summer of 1772. They made a leisurely progress to the Cape of Good
Hope, dropping anchor in Table Bay on 30 October. Cook allowed
three weeks here for revictualling and bringing ships and men to
peak condition for the regions of fog and ice into which they were
about to enter. Lying nearby in the anchorage were two Dutch East-
Indiamen bound for Batavia. Scurvy was rife on board these vessels
but there was no trace of the disease on
Adventure
and
Resolution.
What secret, then, had Cook discovered which enabled him to com-
bat this scourge so effectively?
If by 'secret' we mean some sovereign antiscorbutic which
could be kept fresh and potent for months on end, the answer is
that he had no secret. It seems that he did not realise the value of
fresh lemons and oranges, which were recommended by Dr James
Lind, for these items do not appear on his lists of provisions. This is
strange, for Banks had dosed himself with citrus fruit juice during
the cruise of the
Endeavour
and Lind almost came on Cook's second
voyage. (He withdrew when Banks abandoned the expedition.) The
reason for this blindspot may be that he placed no confidence in an-
other substance with which the Admiralty provided him: rob. This
was a syrup made from lemon and orange juice, boiled down and
mixed with sugar. Cook was, of course, right: the necessary vitamins
had been driven out during the process of concentration. However,
he continued to use rob and anything else that varied the diet and
might prove beneficial. This included portable soup, currants,
sauerkraut, a decoction of malt and spruce beer; few of which items
were, in fact, beneficial in cases of scurvy. Like other good captains,
he supplemented the ship's larder with fresh meat and vegetables
whenever possible. In this he went further than most of his contem-
poraries by experimenting with whatever berries, grasses, leaves
and roots were offered by even the most sparsely covered terrains.
None of this set him apart as an innovator.
