> But in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cure for scurvy was lost

Shit got lost in the olden days! No Google, no Wikipedia ...

Mozart only learned about J. S. Bach a few years before his death. Amazingly, he spent his entire career ignorant about the important works of his great predecessor.

Today, thanks to modern information technology, the only professionals who remain ignorant about prior work in their field are software developers.