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Scurvy: The Disease of Discovery

af Jonathan Lamb

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37	2	669,724	(3.5)	1
Scurvy, a disease often associated with long stretches of maritime travel, generated sensations exceeding the standard of what was normal. Eyes dazzled, skin was morbidly sensitive, emotions veered between disgust and delight. In this book, Jonathan Lamb presents an intellectual history of scurvy unlike any other, probing the speechless encounter with powerful sensations to tell the story of the disease that its victims couldn't because they found their illness too terrible and, in some cases, too exciting.Drawing on historical accounts from scientists and voyagers as well as major literary works, Lamb traces the cultural impact of scurvy during the eighteenth-century age of geographical and scientific discovery. He explains the medical knowledge surrounding scurvy and the debates about its cause, prevention, and attempted cures. He vividly describes the phenomenon and experience of "scorbutic nostalgia," in which victims imagined mirages of food, water, or home, and then wept when such pleasures proved impossible to consume or reach. Lamb argues that a culture of scurvy arose in the colony of Australia, which was prey to the disease in its early years, and identifies a literature of scurvy in the works of such figures as Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francis Bacon, and Jonathan Swift.Masterful and illuminating, Scurvy shows how the journeys of discovery in the eighteenth century not only ventured outward to the ends of the earth, but were also an inward voyage into the realms of sensation and passion.… (mere)

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This one allowed me to gain a new perspective on malnutrition at sea and certain side effects that can only come with scurvy. I already knew that ascorbic acid synthesizes collagen and without it we literally fall apart at the seams. But it can also cause dramatic emotional fluctuations, amnesia and extreme sensory overload. Many 18th c. scientific observations and personal accounts at sea, taken at face value, were actually written through the lens of scurvy.

Lamb also covers the fruitless attempts to pinpoint the prevention of scurvy and how it can easily mask as other diseases. All those symptoms also led to an intense, deadly homesickness known as "Scorbutic nostalgia." So much so, it was studied extensively alongside what's known as calenture, a delusion that causes sailors to throw themselves into the sea. Finally, the chapters on scurvy culture in Australia had me thinking about land-scurvy. Convicts certainly weren't provided fresh fruit consistently and apparently provisions varied wildly. It would be interesting to compare this with early American pioneers who traveled for months on end with a similar diet.

However, Lamb assumes a lot of their reader from the beginning. Thank goodness I've read a lot of medical history and the 18th century is my specialty. Surnames are dropped without context, which results in limited accessibility outside of academia. Also, it's a shame Lamb didn't utilize more non-English accounts of scurvy. I would've liked to see more 18th c. French or Dutch sources, considering the abundance of their literature. Lamb often refers to the Odyssey, Lucretius, and Moby Dick, so it definitely wasn't a cultural limitation. (

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asukamaxwell | Feb 5, 2024 |

Book received from NetGalley.

I enjoyed this book, though I did have a few issues with it. Parts of it seemed to switch gears from the main point of the book which is scurvy, how doctors figured out what caused it, and how it was prevented without refrigeration and other modern preservation methods. The other was the use of quite a bit of medical jargon that I had to look up. I believe that this book is supposed to be for the general public, but that didn't always seem to be the case. All that being said I did enjoy learning about the discovery that the disease wasn't contagious, how they figured out how to cure it and how the sailors at that time dealt with the disease. It was also interesting reading about some historical incidences could have been influenced by captains and crew having acute reactions to scurvy. I think it's a good read just have a good medical website to explain terms just in case. (

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Diana_Long_Thomas | Jan 21, 2017 |

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I saw those things, which the rude Mariner / (Who hath no Mistress but Experience) / Doth for unquestionable Truths aver, / Guided belike by his external sence: / But Academicks (who can never err, / Who by pure Wit and Learning's quintessence, / Into all Nature's secrets dive and pry) / Count either Lyes, or coznings of the Eye. - Luiz Vaz de Camoens, The Lusiad, Richard Fanshawe's translation, (1655)

Death is the penaltic impos'd, beware, And govern well thy appetite, least sin, Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death. - John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674)

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To The Memory Of Sir James Watt, KBE FRCS (1914-2009), physician, sailor and scholar

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This book grew out of a chapter in an earlier book on the South Seas, where it was placed as a kind of penchant to another on leprosy.

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Scurvy, a disease often associated with long stretches of maritime travel, generated sensations exceeding the standard of what was normal. Eyes dazzled, skin was morbidly sensitive, emotions veered between disgust and delight. In this book, Jonathan Lamb presents an intellectual history of scurvy unlike any other, probing the speechless encounter with powerful sensations to tell the story of the disease that its victims couldn't because they found their illness too terrible and, in some cases, too exciting.Drawing on historical accounts from scientists and voyagers as well as major literary works, Lamb traces the cultural impact of scurvy during the eighteenth-century age of geographical and scientific discovery. He explains the medical knowledge surrounding scurvy and the debates about its cause, prevention, and attempted cures. He vividly describes the phenomenon and experience of "scorbutic nostalgia," in which victims imagined mirages of food, water, or home, and then wept when such pleasures proved impossible to consume or reach. Lamb argues that a culture of scurvy arose in the colony of Australia, which was prey to the disease in its early years, and identifies a literature of scurvy in the works of such figures as Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francis Bacon, and Jonathan Swift.Masterful and illuminating, Scurvy shows how the journeys of discovery in the eighteenth century not only ventured outward to the ends of the earth, but were also an inward voyage into the realms of sensation and passion.

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