IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001200831

Scurvy and Other Vitamin Deficiencies during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (2013)

Guly, H. R. (Author)

Journal for Maritime Research: Britian, the Sea and Global History
Volume: 15
Pages: 63--68

Outside Links

PubMed

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Vitamins Travel; exploration Food and foods Nutrition; dietetics Scurvy Medicine Scientific expeditions 19th century 20th century, early Arctic regions

At the start of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration there was great confusion concerning the cause of scurvy. It was known that it was related, in some way, to food but it was uncertain as to how, and there were two main theories. The first was that it was caused by a deficiency of fruit and vegetables and the other that it was caused by a toxic material in tinned foods. In addition, older theories that it was caused by dirt and damp still carried weight and Almroth Wright had proposed that scurvy was caused by too much acid in the blood. An additional confusion was that vitamin C deficiency was often combined with other vitamin deficiencies and so other diseases might be labelled as scurvy. The discovery of vitamins occurred over the same period but, as with all new scientific concepts, the knowledge that scurvy was caused by a vitamin deficiency took time to be universally accepted. It was generally accepted by about 1920, although some people did not accept it until vitamin C was isolated in 1932.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001200831/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Anthony, Jason C.; (2011)
The Importance of Eating Local: Slaughter and Scurvy in Antarctic Cuisine (/isis/citation/CBB001210147/)

Article Guly, Henry; (2012)
Dr. Reginald Koettlitz (1860--1916): Arctic and Antarctic Explorer (/isis/citation/CBB001200783/)

Book McDowell, Lee; (2013)
Vitamin History: The Early Years (/isis/citation/CBB001422145/)

Article Froggatt, Peter; Walker, Brian M.; (2012)
From Precocious Fame to Mature Obscurity: David Walker (1837--1917) MD, LRSCIi, Surgeon and Naturalist to the Fox Arctic Expedition of 1857--59 (/isis/citation/CBB001200784/)

Thesis Ackerman, Michael; (2005)
Interpreting the “Newer Knowledge of Nutrition”: Science, Interests, and Values in the Making of Dietary Advice in the United States, 1915--1965 (/isis/citation/CBB001561853/)

Article Krasnikova, O. A.; (2006)
The Academy of Sciences and Arctic Explorations: The Polar Commission, 1914--1936 (/isis/citation/CBB000930319/)

Article Higgins, Peter McRorie; (2006)
The Scurvy Scandal at Millbank Penitentiary: A Reassessment (/isis/citation/CBB000773966/)

Article Krzysztof Ludwik Birkenmajer; (2017)
Polskie badania polarne (zarys) / Polish Polar Research (Outline) (/isis/citation/CBB963951811/)

Book Emil Bessels; (2016)
Polaris: The Chief Scientist's Recollections of the American North Pole Expedition, 1871-73 (/isis/citation/CBB695538374/)

Article Cavell, Janice; (2013)
Publishing Sir John Franklin's Fate: Cannibalism, Journalism, and the 1881 Edition of Leopold McClintock's The Voyage of the “Fox” in the Arctic Seas (/isis/citation/CBB001201827/)

Article Marthe Fjellestad; (2022)
Photography in the Arctic Archipelago during the First International Polar Year, 1882–1883 (/isis/citation/CBB131981398/)

Article McCorristine, Shane; (2013)
“Involuntarily We Listen”: Hearing the Aurora Borealis in Nineteenth-Century Arctic Exploration and Science (/isis/citation/CBB001320858/)

Book Wrigley, Richard; Revill, George; (2000)
Pathologies of Travel (/isis/citation/CBB000110604/)

Article Bullock, April; (2012)
The Cosmopolitan Cookbook: Class, Taste, and Foreign Foods in Victorian Cookery Books (/isis/citation/CBB001320905/)

Article Noyce, Diana; (2012)
Charles Darwin, the Gourmet Traveler (/isis/citation/CBB001320002/)

Article Brian Payne; (2019)
Nature's Bread: The Natural Food Debate in Canada, 1940–1949 (/isis/citation/CBB006947860/)

Book Peter R. Dawes; (2022)
Expedition Relics from High Arctic Greenland: Eight Decades of Exploration History, Told through 102 Objects (/isis/citation/CBB344098059/)

Article Ouédraogo, Arouna P.; (2001)
Food and the Purification of Society: Dr. Paul Carton and Vegetarianism in Interwar France (/isis/citation/CBB000770466/)

Article Guly, Henry; (2012)
An Antarctic Sealing Expedition and the Medical Diary of William Spiers Bruce (1867--1921) (/isis/citation/CBB001200787/)

Article Caroline Durand; (2016)
Patates, pain, et lard salé valaient-ils mieux que céréales, bacon et boeuf haché? La diète quotidienne et la santé au Québec, 1861–1941 (/isis/citation/CBB133892591/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}