Scurvy, past and present / by Alfred F. Hess.

  • Alfred Fabian Hess
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scurvy, past and present / by Alfred F. Hess. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    254/308 page 230
    TREATMENT “Seek the cure of scurvy neither in the armamen¬ tarium of the physician nor in the apothecary shops. The druggist will be of as little aid to you as the art of the surgeon. On the other hand, employ fresh vegetables, the juice of fresh antiscorbutic plants, oranges and lemons or the juice of those fruits preserved with sugar; in this way without other means you will be able to over¬ come this terrible disease.” This reads like the advice of some modern therapeutist; it is, however, the conclu¬ sion of a physician (Kramer) who wrote on scurvy almost two hundred years ago, and shows that the treatment of scurvy has undergone no fundamental change in the inter¬ vening years. Our resources, however, have been ampli¬ fied by an increased knowledge of the relative value of antiscorbutic foodstuffs and by the introduction of some new ones. Prevention.—In the Temperate Zone, under ordinary conditions, the adult population consumes sufficient anti¬ scorbutic foodstuff to protect it from scurvy. Under ex¬ ceptional circumstances, however—for example, when the potato crop fails, or, in the case of individuals, when the diet has been unduly restricted, scurvy will be encoun¬ tered. This disorder is still an important problem, how¬ ever, in relation to the health of adults in the Tropics, in military expeditions and in Polar explorations. Erom what has been stated in the preceding chapter, it is evi¬ dent that, at the present time, no reliance can be placed on dehydrated vegetables as a protective agent. The
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