Blimey! It's Lind's Limes!

Another non-fic historical account, this time of the great discovery made by Dr Lind.

Jaques Cartier had a problem. You see, his sailors were getting a disease called scurvy. His crew's skin became scaly, and their joints began to disconnects. The men became weak and some eventually died.

He was wintering in the St Lawrence River, Canada, and the Indians around them suggested they should drink a special tea made of pine needles. The sick sailors were willing to try anything to get them out of a horrible death. Amazingly, it worked! Jaques was overjoyed when he got home and told everyone, but no-one believed him.

At that time, scurvy was a terrible disease, especially for the British Navy. Because England was an island nation and their navy was particularly important. When Dr Lind heard about this, and researched scurvy, he wondered, "Hmm. I wonder whether scurvy has something to do with diet." He started doing experiments on sailors with scurvy. He picked 12 sailors and he put them into six pairs. He put each of the pairs on a slightly different diet. One of the pairs ate the usual sailors' diet but added to this, they were fed two oranged and one lemon a day. THey were the only ones who recovered from scurvy, and quickly too.

When Captain Cook heard about Lind, he was interested in his discovery. Cook wanted to go on an expedition of the Pacific Ocean. This journey would take four years, which is, if you think about it, is a very long time to be away from home. He talked to Lind, and said, "I want to go on an expedition fo the Pacific. But I'm frightened that my sailors will get scurvy."

Lind immediatly said, "What you need to keep your sailors from scurvy is cleaner living quarters, fresh food, and you really should make landfall whenever possible to pick up more fresh food. And most importantly, feed your crew with lime juice or another citrus food. That should keep your sailors from any case of scurvy."

Cook thought about this and agreed to give it a go. "Anything that will keep my sailors from scurvy," he told Lind. He went on his jouney, and he ordered his sailors to drink lime juice every single day. Some of the sailors thought the lime juice was disgusting, but they had to do what the captain said. Wow! It worked! Cook went on to explore the length of Australia and discover that New Zealand was actually two islands instead of one. His crew didn't get scurvy, and praised Captain Cook for managing the ship so well.

When Cook got home, he told everyone about his success, but the doctors and the British Navy refused to believe this or change the diet of the ships' crews. THe navy did, however, put air ventilation down to the bottom on the ships and give the crew better living quarters. They told Lind, "How dare you think that we aren't feeding our crews well enough. We have the best navy in the world."

The doctors didn't believe Lind either, because the already believed the germ theory the Dr Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur had proposed. They believed that germs and only germs caused sickness, and that diet had nothing to do with it. Actually, nowadays we know why the citrus fruit and special tea of pine needles that the Indians gave to Cartier's crew had worked.  They have Vitamin C in them. Vitamin C prevents scurvy from occurring. Nowadays, ships' crews don't get scurvy because they get their daily dose of Vitamin C.

Eventually though, the British Navy did give in to Lind's Limes. Now the crews were well stocked with limes in their supply hold. Limes, you see, keep well. And no one got scurvy in the British Navy again. That's why we call British sailors "Limeys".

And everyone lived happily ever after!

Author's Note

Pay attention to all grammar probs and typos, PLEASE!

Reviews

[C. C. Burl]

Very interesting little story; I enjoyed it very much. Of course I am also a history buff, so that helps! I found no grammar errors or typos, and the story was very well written. Thank you for posting, I enjoyed the read, as well as the new information I learned! Thanks, Burl.