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One of the scariest things I ever read was the true story of how the British Navy discovered and then lost the knowledge of how to cure scurvy. IIRC, they foun
by carapace 6y ago
One of the scariest things I ever read was the true story of how the British Navy discovered and then lost the knowledge of how to cure scurvy.
IIRC, they found that limes (or lemons) would prevent scurvy on long voyages; then the ships got faster AND the switched to a citrus fruit lemons (or limes) that didn't have enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but they didn't realize it because the faster voyages didn't allow enough time for scurvy to develop; then on some longer voyages sailors did develop scurvy despite eating the citrus fruit, so the Navy erroneously concluded that citrus fruit didn't cure scurvy after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#19th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#19th_century
- redis_mlc 6y agoMilitary officers are very hard-headed. Admirals resisted submarines and carriers until catastrophe forced their hands. Most people don't realize that scurvy had actual fatalities on most British ships that went on long voyages. Similarly, in Japan in the late 1800's, deckhands had a ration of free rice (mainly carbohydrates), so that's all they ate. As a result, there were ships half full of sailors laying ill from almost no vitamins, mainly B1, resulting in beriberi. That continued with the army into the early 1900's: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/eating-too-much-rice-almost-sank-the-japanese-navy-f985772c81a6 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/eating-too-much-rice-almost...