Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail
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Well, after doing a lot of research and reviewing the testimonials here and somewhere else, I decided to buy Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail. Though I 'd have chosen a better guarantee, I chose the functions were attractive enough to attempt it. It is a lot of cash to throw away if it fails just after the warranty. I am absolutely in love with this product. It is high quality item, wise features. I just got it today, and I will update my testimonial later on if needed.
Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail Explanation
Scurvy took a terrible toll in the Age of Sail, killing more sailors than were lost in all sea battles combined. The threat of the disease kept ships close to home and doomed those vessels that ventured too far from port. The willful ignorance of the royal medical elite, who endorsed ludicrous medical theories based on speculative research while ignoring the life-saving properties of citrus fruit, cost tens of thousands of lives and altered the course of many battles at sea. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of human accomplishments, yet its impact on history has, until now, been largely ignored.
From the earliest recorded appearance of the disease in the sixteenth century, to the eighteenth century, where a man had only half a chance of surviving the scourge, to the early nineteenth century, when the British conquered scurvy and successfully blockaded the French and defeated Napoleon, Scurvy is a medical detective story for the ages, the fascinating true story of how James Lind (the surgeon), James Cook (the mariner), and Gilbert Blane (the gentleman) worked separately to eliminate the dreaded affliction.
Scurvy is an evocative journey back to the era of wooden ships and sails, when the disease infiltrated every aspect of seafaring life: press gangs "recruit" mariners on the way home from a late night at the pub; a terrible voyage in search of riches ends with a hobbled fleet and half the crew heaved overboard; Cook majestically travels the South Seas but suffers an unimaginable fate. Brimming with tales of ships, sailors, and baffling bureaucracy, Scurvy is a rare mix of compelling history and classic adventure story.
From the earliest recorded appearance of the disease in the sixteenth century, to the eighteenth century, where a man had only half a chance of surviving the scourge, to the early nineteenth century, when the British conquered scurvy and successfully blockaded the French and defeated Napoleon, Scurvy is a medical detective story for the ages, the fascinating true story of how James Lind (the surgeon), James Cook (the mariner), and Gilbert Blane (the gentleman) worked separately to eliminate the dreaded affliction.
Scurvy is an evocative journey back to the era of wooden ships and sails, when the disease infiltrated every aspect of seafaring life: press gangs "recruit" mariners on the way home from a late night at the pub; a terrible voyage in search of riches ends with a hobbled fleet and half the crew heaved overboard; Cook majestically travels the South Seas but suffers an unimaginable fate. Brimming with tales of ships, sailors, and baffling bureaucracy, Scurvy is a rare mix of compelling history and classic adventure story.
Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail Features
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Most Underlined Buyer Review : an excellent book
This is a well-written, entertaining book. I read it mostly due to my interest in sea-faring and the "age of sail," as the author terms it. However, I found myself enjoying it just as much for the story it tells about the gradual discovery of a cure for a disease that crippled sea-faring nations for centuries. Particularly enlightening is the story of the bureacracy, the British Admiralty, that stubbornly ignored the potential cure, even as it suffered tremendous losses for its ignorance, and how vital privilege and influence is in challenging and changing such an establishment. The book's only minor flaw is that it focuses primarily on one country, Britain, without elaborating on how or why France or Spain failed to find a cause and a cure. I would recommend it highly.
Hear The Reviews from Other Buyers
Beating Scurvy
I've always been fascinated by the age of sail, particularly the period during the Napoleonic Wars. An incredible test of nations and the men at sea occurred during that war. Consequently I have enjoyed reading numerous fictional accounts of that war from authors such as Patrick O'Brien, Dudley Pope, and C.S. Forester. What I never fully grasped were all the reasons why the Brits were superior to the French and Spanish navies. Those authors always talked up the better training and discipline as the reason. They also pointed to the leadership purges of the French navy that occurred during the revolution. However, I intuitively recognized that there was something more to the story. The cure for scurvy was that something more. And the Brits got there first.
Brown does a fantastic job of outlining the history of scurvy and the quest for a cure in a very interesting and readable fashion. Outlining the course of scurvy at sea during the voyages of Anson and Cook, he is...
Not as deep as it could have been.
This book tackles a fascinating subject; scurvy which killed 100,000s of sailors. Many passages illuminate the causes and affects of this terrible disease, which quite simply results from a lack of vitamin C and causes the bond of the body to weaken, causing terrible bleeding in the gums and from the skin. The cure for scurvy was not understood for 100s of years and this book takes the reader on a quick stroll through this history. Why did Eskimoes, who ate no vegetables, not suffer scurvy? This question was posed by the English whose aptitude for eating limes gave them the nickname `limies' since limes appeared to counteract scurvy. Why did preserved meat not work? Why did cooked meat or limes not work? These questions were eventually answered by the man who found out the truth behind the disease. This is the books central theme and actually its main detraction. Since the book focuses on the men, reminiscent of the recent book on the OED, it detracts slightly from the...
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