Thread by @garius

Okay. Let's talk about how the Royal Navy discovered the cure for scurvy, won the Napoleonic War, lost that knowledge without realising, then got saved by Norwegian guinea pigs.

https://twitter.com/BadSocialism/status/1149605704161882113

So scurvy is a terrible, awful condition that results from a lack of Vitamin C. Its symptoms are AWFUL and get progressively worse - bleeding and swollen gums, loss of teeth, swollen eyes, inability to move/work, loss of hair...

...and then you die.

Now for most creatures on earth it's not a problem, because they can synthesise their own Vitamin C.

Remember this fact because it will be important later.

Humans (and primates) can't. We have to get it from other sources - fresh fruit and (sometimes) meat.

Now for most of history this hasn't been too much of a problem for humanity. We mostly have access to those things, and when we DON'T, well we're probably dying from war and/or famine anyway.

Which brings us to naval history...

Because as ships get better, they allow humans to travel further without going ashore.

And THAT'S why, from about the 17th century onwards, scurvy becomes a growing problem for European navies.

Sailors start falling victim to scurvy in mass numbers.

By the 18th century (the age of colonisation and trade) this is a MASSIVE problem. Ships are sometimes returning to port with 80 - 90% casualties. That's ignoring the ones lost because they couldn't function during storms that we can't track.

Enter the good ship HMS Salisbury.

In 1747, the Scot James Lind, ship's doctor on HMS Salisbury decides he's going to work out what causes scurvy. He takes 12 sailors suffering from it and starts giving them different combos of the things alleged to cure it: vinegar, fruit, sea water, garlic, mustard, horseradish

And lo! The fresh fruit - lemons and limes - works! SUDDENLY, the Royal Navy has an empirically proven cure for scurvy.

Of course, being the Navy it fucking ignores Lind's report for about 50 years, but in about 1798 they go: 'dude. Sorry. Finally read this. Yeah, you're right.'

FROM THAT POINT, the Royal Navy starts carrying fresh fruit, or convoying it out to ships on blockade.

This is a CRITICAL FACTOR in it's dominance of the sea in the 19th Century, and why it is able to blockade France completely in the Napoleonic war. Because it can stay at sea.

~~wobbly lines wobbly lines ~~

Over the next 100ys, regulations, the world, budgets etc. change. The Navy is still aware of scurvy and the need to fight it, but they switch to lime juice from the West Indies, as that's easier and cheaper than fresh oranges from the mediterranean

The problem is, THIS LIME JUICE DOESN'T ACTUALLY STOP SCURVY. It's just that everyone THINKS it does.

This is because STILL no one understands WHY fresh fruit cures scurvy. Indeed they think it's the acid in it. But it's NOT. It's the VITAMIN C.

Now FRESH limes worked. Limes don't contain as much Vitamin C as lemons but enough. But once it's turned into JUICE, exposed to the air and copper pipes/storage (as used, say, on naval ships) the Vitamin C content drops drastically

It's now, at BEST, something that DELAYS scurvy

So why doesn't the Royal Navy (or anyone else) notice?

Because SHIP TECH has improved as well. So journeys BY SEA are shorter (in duration) again. This means that the marginal effects of lime juice are enough to mean that sailors / passengers are in port before scurvy kicks in.

Unfortunately, the same ISN'T true for arctic/antarctic explorers. And this proves FATAL for Scott's antarctic expedition. Scurvy is one of the reasons they die, and thus exploration FINALLY highlights that people have forgotten how to stop it.

Enter the Norwegian Guinea pigs.

In 1907, two Norwegian scientists (Axel Holst and Theodor Frølich) are studying Beriberi. They believe it is caused by nutritional issues. They decide to test this by feeding guinea pigs grain ONLY, and seeing if they develop beriberi like symptoms.

They don't. THEY GET SCURVY.

The sheer luck of this, for understanding scurvy, is hard to overstate. Remember how I said at the beginning that most creatures - apart from us and primates - can synthesise their own Vitamin C?

Guinea pigs are one of the vanishingly small number of other species that can't!

Reports of Holst and Frølich's scurvy-ridden guinea pigs prick the interest of Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi, who was fascinated with organic acids and their effects. He takes that work forward

In 1937 Szent-Györgyi wins the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Vitamin C

And THAT is how the cure for scurvy was discovered, lost, and recovered.

And why, IMHO, there should be a statue of two guinea pigs outside the Admiralty: a monument to the importance of logistics and discovery to naval history, and a warning of what happens when we forget them.

OBLIGATORY END OF THREAD BITS:

If you enjoyed this you can buy me a coffee here:

ko-fi.com/garius

If you like weird medical history you may enjoy my piece on how Quincy changed the way drugs are made: medium.com/@garius/how-qu…

If you like near historical misses, you may like my Pristina airport incident account:

medium.com/lapsed-histori…

Or how a computer glitch almost made the Cold War hot:

medium.com/lapsed-histori…

And the rest of my history stuff is here:

medium.com/@garius

Oh, and HUGE shout out to @lrbudd for reminding me about this whole element of awesome naval history in the ongoing chat about interesting history over here:

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1149587770127446017

@lrbudd ADDENDUM: (and again, thanks to @lrbudd) you can read a proper, non-twitter article WITH SCIENCE on the scurvy thing (and its impact on the Scott expedition) here:

idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_…