Why We Forgot The Cure For Scurvy

Scurvy is zero fun. We’re not sure how much you know about this disease but it’s not a walk in the park. Okay, it’s fair to say that not many diseases are a gentle stroll through a pretty field of flower-filled gardens, but scurvy really is an incredible bastard. The only thing going for it is that you’re generally dead pretty quick.

You start off feeling a little tired, sore and short of breath. Your gums start to hurt and your legs swell. Then, your darkening, swelling legs develop purple, black, red or blue spots, your muscles start wasting away and you start hallucinating. Then your teeth fall out, your gums rot, old wounds open up and you become so weak and sick that you die. Put simply, it is horrible and gross.

And scurvy is not a recent phenomenon.

It has plagued humans since ancient times. It hammered early agricultural societies, and we can even see evidence of it in ancient writings.

But while it has always been around, it really took off in the age of the explorers.

Take, for example, Vasco de Gama’s 1497 journey around the Cape of Good Hope. One hundred of his one hundred and sixty men died. In fact, all shipowners and governments in the 15th-18th centuries assumed that 50% of the crew on a long voyage would die of scurvy. Imagine starting your voyage knowing that you had a 50/50 shot at actually living to see the end of it.

It doesn’t sound like a great time. We’re surprised anyone wanted to voyage anywhere with odds like that. But scurvy’s scourge continued right through to modern times with cases occurring still today in the malnourished.

As a deficiency disease, and possibly one of the easiest things to treat and cure, we humans have done a truly remarkable job of continuing to get scurvy. We’ve overlooked the cause of scurvy and have been bizarrely forgetful when the cure was stumbled across.

Of course, it was never a matter of just forgetting. Colonial trades and fear of poisoning played a role, as did a range of whacky treatments that confused everyone. And as always, a healthy dose of terrible science communication was thrown in there too.

Join us while we poke fun at the ridiculous amount of times this simple yet horrific disease kept resurfacing, and why lemons (not limes) reign supreme.

Previous episodes mentioned:

Ep 276 - Philip Nitschke's Quest to Allow Us To Die

Ep 111 - Drinking your own urine?

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