Scurvy in high latitudes : an attempt to explain the cause of the 'medical failure' of the Arctic expedition of 1875-6 / by Patrick Black.

  • Black, Patrick, 1813-1879.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scurvy in high latitudes : an attempt to explain the cause of the 'medical failure' of the Arctic expedition of 1875-6 / by Patrick Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    One of your readers—a gentleman high in the civil service of the Navy—on reading my letter of the 1st inst., sent me the following :— ‘ In one of his [Sir John Bichardson’s] expeditions, he found his men losing strength very rapidly, although in full allowance of provisions, and becoming daily more and more dispirited without any assignable cause. At the same time he observed that the Es- quimaux of his party were thriving and jolly as usual; they were living on blubber, and when he persuaded his men to take to the same kind of food, they rapidly recovered.’ It is very rare for London physicians to see cases of scurvy such as they are presented at our sea- ports. Still, having been for many years physician to the old ‘ Dreadnought,’ I am as familiar with it as with the most common diseases of our London hospitals. In many cases which I had to treat there I never thought or found it necessary to give my patients any of the so- called anti-scorbutics, but found that milk, soft bread- and-butter, anything, in fact, that was suitable for very tender gums, was all that was required for their re- covery in the first instance. After a time, no doubt, when their cure was more than half effected, they had the ordinary diet of convalescent patients, which in- cluded potatoes or other articles of supposed anti- scorbutic virtue. It happened to me once to have some patients