Scurvy
eBook - ePub

Scurvy

How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Scurvy

How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail

About this book

In the Age of Sail scurvy was responsible for more deaths at sea than piracy, shipwreck and all other illnesses, and its cure ranks among the greatest of military successes – yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored.

Stephen Bown searches back to the earliest recorded appearance of scurvy in the sixteenth century, to the eighteenth century when the disease was at its gum-shredding, bone-snapping worst, and to the early nineteenth century, when the preventative was finally put into service. Bown introduces us to James Lind, the navy surgeon and medical detective, whose research on the disease spawned the implementation of the cure; Captain James Cook, who successfully avoided scurvy on his epic voyages; and Gilbert Blane, whose social status and charisma won over the British Navy.

Scurvy is a lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of eighteenth-century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era.

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Yes, you can access Scurvy by Stephen Bown,Stephen R. Bown in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Maps
  6. Acknowledgements
  7. New Introduction for 2021 Edition
  8. Timeline
  9. Prologue: A Medical Mystery
  10. 1 The Eighteenth-Century Seafaring World: The Age of Scurvy
  11. 2 Scurvy: The Plague of the Sea
  12. 3 Disaster and Victory in the South Seas: Lord Anson’s Terrible Voyage
  13. 4 Found and Lost: The Search for a Cure Begins
  14. 5 An Ounce of Prevention: James Lind and the Salisbury Experiment
  15. 6 Unwinding the Knot: Rob and Wort and the Trials at Sea
  16. 7 Master Mariner: James Cook’s Great Voyages in the Pacific
  17. 8 Man of lnfluence: Gilbert Blane and the West Indies Fleet
  18. 9 Blockade: The Defeat of Scurvy and Napoleon
  19. Epilogue: The Mystery Solved
  20. Appendix: Vitamin C Contained in Common Foods of the Age of Sail
  21. A Note on Sources and Further Reading
  22. Bibliography