0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Bored chemist wrote:When did oranges fail to cure scurvy?
One of the earliest outbreaks of scurvy at sea was sustained by the crew of Vasco da Gama during his 1497 expedition to India. Da Gama began his expedition from Lisbon on July 9, 1497, with a fleet of 4 ships and a crew of 140 men. It took them 6 months to round the Cape of Good Hope. By the time da Gama's crew landed on the southeast coast of Africa, most of them were afflicted with scurvy. Da Gama recorded: "Many of our men fell ill here, their feet and hands swelling, and their gums growing over their teeth so that they could not eat." As they sailed farther up the east coast of Africa, they met local traders, who traded them fresh oranges. Within 6 days of eating the oranges, da Gama's crew recovered fully and he noted, "It pleased God in his mercy that ... all our sick recovered their health for the air of the place is very good." http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/108/4/e76
From India, da Gama returned across the Arabian Sea. Within 12 weeks of sailing, his crew was again afflicted and weakened by scurvy. Da Gama commented: "We addressed vows and petitions to the Saints ... it pleased God in his mercy to send us a wind which in the course of six days, carried us within sight of land ... at this we rejoiced as ... we hoped to recover our health there as we had done before ... the Captain-Major sent a man on shore to bring off a supply of oranges which were much desired by our sick." Da Gama lost more than half of his crew by the end of his journey.
Once on shore it was a superstition among sailors that the smell and the touch of the earth gave the surest cure. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/captaincook_scurvy_02.shtml
People were aware that once victims were on shore they could be recovered by eating scurvy grass, wild celery, wood sorrel, nasturtiums, brooklime, Kerguelen cabbage (Pringlea antiscorbutica), cabbage trees and other esculent plants growing on the shores of distant islands. Fruit and palm wine were also esteemed to be fine remedies,No one had a remedy for scurvy at sea - however; the best on offer was a battery of prophylactic measures, including portable soup (a preparation of dried vegetables), malt, sauerkraut, concentrated fruit juice (rob), vinegar, mustard, molasses and beans. These were aimed at repelling any sign of scurvy from the outset, since it was impossible to control it, once it had gained a footing, other than by going ashore.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/captaincook_scurvy_02.shtml
His crew sustained scurvy when they had been at sea for 10 weeks or more. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/108/4/e76
In 1902, Axel Holst, a Norwegian professor of bacteriology and hygiene who had been concerned at the appearance of what had been diagnosed as beriberi in the crews of Norwegian sailing ships, seized an opportunity to visit Grijns in Batavia and to see his work on chicken polyneuritis. On his return to Oslo, he attempted to obtain a closer model of "ship-beriberi" by using a mammal as his experimental species, and chose guinea pigs. He fed them grains, either whole or milled, and found that they all died within 30 d. When the carcasses were opened he saw "pronounced hemorrhages" and looseness of the molar teeth. Theodor Frölich, a pediatrician with experience of infantile scurvy, confirmed that the condition appeared to be scurvy with no evidence of any kind of polyneuritis. The two men then found that the condition was not produced by semistarvation, and that it was prevented by giving two traditional antiscorbutics, lemon juice and fresh cabbagehttp://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/133/4/975
Grass is the guinea pig's natural diet.Guinea pigs tend to be fickle eaters when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, having learned early in life what is and is not appropriate to consume, and their habits are difficult to change after maturity.[They do not respond well to sudden changes in diet; they may stop eating and starve rather than accepting new food typesA constant supply of hay or other food is generally recommended, as guinea pigs feed continuously and may develop habits such as chewing on their own hair if food is not presentGuinea pigs are prey animals whose survival instinct is to mask pain and signs of illness, and many times health problems may not be apparent until a condition is severe or in its advanced stages. Treatment of disease is made more difficult by the extreme sensitivity guinea pigs have to most antibiotics, including penicillin, which kill off the intestinal flora and quickly bring on episodes of diarrhea and deathhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pigs
In this post I pointed out on two facts;
One fact is that treating scurvy on the land was always successful and that on the ship scurvy was nearly impossible to treat.
Second fact is that only crew was vulnerable to scurvy and that officer’s wasn’t.
The simple answer is horribly.
Mitochondria stop producing enough energy from sugar(vit.B1 deficiency), it's like having
A quick injection of thiamine* and little ascorbic acid by mouth. Easy and cheap.
OK this isn't a proper, double-blind trial; but I get mouth ulcers a lot less often now that I regularly take vitamins. (My diet isn't very rich in vitamin C because I simply don't like the things that are good sources of it).Incidentally, what's the definition of sub-clinical?
Strains of lab rats/mice/etc have been bred with all sorts of deficiencies, to mirror conditions affecting humans. If asked to guess I'd speculate that was why the rats in this instance weren't making their own ascorbate.
they probably had 'knocked out' the enzyme geneinvolved in ascorbate synthesis. This informationprobably is in the full-text version which I cannotreach.
are there simple signs of asubclinical scurvy, availablein everyday clinical practice?
What could we expect in a child who had been eating for several weeks only pasta/chips and no fruit and veggies?