SCURVY. This word, as well as its Latin synonym seer/was, has been used very vaguely, both by medical men and by the public at large, to designate various diseases of the skin, often differing essen tially from each other. Its derivatives, scorbutic and ant iscorbut ie, of which the former Is employed to designate a supposed virus, the source of these diseases, and the latter the remedies employed for their cure, have been misapplied in a similar manner.
Scurvy, properly so called, is a malady of a peculiar nature, which occurs either at sea or on land as the result of various moral and physical causes of disease, especially of deficient nutriment and a scarcity or total deprivation of succulent vegetables or fruits. Its origin is involved in obscurity, and it is a question still debated whether it was known to the Greeks and Romans. Of its prevalence in the middle ages we have abundant testimony, but the frequent famines that resulted from the imperfect state of agriculture at that day gave rise to so many diseases, which, though different, yet bail limey pointa of resemblance, that we run uonaiderable hazard of con founding them. Thus there is a great similarity between scurvy, the disease which was then called St. Anthony's fire, ergotism (the pecu liar disease produced by spurred rye or other grain), and some of the pestilential fevers of the middle ages, both in their causes and symptoms, and there can be no doubt that the chroniclers of those times often mistook one for the other. It is customary to fix upon the year 1260 as the date of the first authentic mention of the malady, which then appeared iu the Christian army during the campaign of St.-Louis in Egypt. In the north of Europe, however, it would seem that scurvy has been known from the most remote antiquity, and until within the last two centuries it prevailed there endemically. With the improvements in gardening and agriculture, it gradually became less frequent. As late as the middle of the last century it was common not only among the peasants on the borders of the Baltic, but it prevailed in Scotland and in some of the sea-port towns of Devonshire and Cornwall, breaking out in winter, and "dis appearing as vegetable food became more abundant with the return of spring. Later the disease has occurred in camps, as in the French
army of the Alps at the close of the last century ; and in besieged towns whose inhabitants have been deprived of fresh vegetables. A famous French physician, M. Fodere, mentions that isolated cases occur every year in the more unhealthy quarters of Paris. Some of its earlier syrnptZms may occasionally be observed in patients admitted into the London hospitals; and our prison reports prove it to be by no means uncommon in persons sentenced to long periods of confinement Diseases are still endemic in various parts of Europe, which present a great analogy to scurvy both in their causes and symptoms ; such as the Redefine in Norway, the Mal. de la Rosa in the province of Asturias in Spain, and the Pellagra in Lombardy.
During the prevalence of the potato disease in Ireland, in 1845, scurvy prevailed extensively. It was occasionally observed at the same time in most of the large towns of England, and since, when potatoes have been scarce, it has been known to break out During the Crimean war, it prevailed extensively, both among the French and English troops.
But it is at sea that the ravages of scurvy have been most severely felt, and any one at all familiar with the accounts of our early navi gators must remember many heart-rending tales of suffering which they record. Even as recently as the time of Lord Anson scurvy was so fatal that during the first two years of his voyage he lost more than four-fifths of his original crew. The sagacity of Captain Cook however, only thirty years afterwards, suggested to him such means for the preservation of the health of his ship's company, that in a voyage of more than three years only one sailor of the Resolution died. The name of Captain Cook is now frequently mentioned in connection with his successful voyages, but his claim to the gratitude of pos terity may bo fairly grounded on the wonderful sanitary results of his voyage round the world.