Arr, mateys, climb aboard for a swash-buckling tale of when the high seas were full of disease! Today we’re covering a non-infectious but no less terrifying scourge that has wrecked millions of lives and sent even the bravest of sailors quivering in their boots: Scurvy. From the open ocean to the California gold rush to modern times, scurvy has been causing collagen breakdown throughout human history, and we can blame it all on…evolution?
History | Biology |
Carpenter, Kenneth J. The history of scurvy and vitamin C. Cambridge University Press, 1988. | Fain, Olivier. “Musculoskeletal manifestations of scurvy.” Joint bone spine 72.2 (2005): 124-128. |
Sauberlich, Howard E. “A history of scurvy and vitamin C.” (1997). In Vitamin C in Health and Disease edited by Lester Packer and Jürgen Fuchs | Chazan, Joseph A., and Steven Paul Mistilis. “The pathophysiology of scurvy: a report of seven cases.” The American journal of medicine 34.3 (1963): 350-358. |
Wilson, Leonard G. “The clinical definition of scurvy and the discovery of vitamin C.” Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 30.1 (1975): 40-60. | Singh, Jyoti, et al. “Scurvy: a common co-morbid condition in severe acute malnutrition.” The Indian Journal of Pediatrics82.8 (2015): 761-762. |
The Cambridge World History of Human Disease edited by Kenneth Kiple | Mason, John B. “Lessons on nutrition of displaced people.” The Journal of nutrition 132.7 (2002): 2096S-2103S. |
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