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Comment by sidewndr46 | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of how scurvy was apparently well known in the age of sail but sort of forgotten with the industrial revolution. It showed back up again in Arctic expeditions from what I understand.

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I don't recall where the the Arctic expeditions slot into this saga, but for ages we understood the lemon link but we hadn't identified Vitamin C yet.

So there was a moment in time where the British Royal Navy was carrying around concentrated lime juice to fight scurvy (hence, Limey). Only the vendor that made the lime juice processed it in copper vessels, destroying most of the vitamin C.

It doesn't take much vitamin C to prevent scurvy. But it does take some.

There was a competing theory that scurvy was prevented by eating fresh meat, and that's easier to get in the arctic: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

If it's not clear (as the article also mentions this), fresh meat does prevent scurvy! Many, if not most animals, internally produce their own vitamin C and so fresh meat is often loaded with vitamin C. Here's a table listing vitamin C content for various meats. That site separates fish from meat, so you need to change the combobox to also see those data.

[1] - https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrient-ranking-tool/Vitamin-C...

> Vitamin C can be destroyed by heat and light. High-heat cooking temperatures or prolonged cook times can break down the vitamin. Because it is water-soluble, the vitamin can also seep into cooking liquid and be lost if the liquids are not eaten.

In "The Terror" (A supernatural horror story by Dan Simmons, set in the lost Franklin expedition) it is raw meat that saves the indigenous people from scurvy. Which is probably not too inaccurate.

I seem to remember that it was also a switch to a different citrus fruit which had way less vitamin C in it so the processing was much mroe important.

However, since the switch corresponded to the rise of steam power (ship trips were much faster), nobody noticed that that they weren't protected from scurvy anymore.

It wasn't until the artic expeditions that scurvy protection got tested again.

They believed the scurvy protection came from the sourness of lemons, so they switched to lime which is even more sour than lemon, but contains less vitamin C.

"The Accidental Scientist: The Role of Chance and Luck in Scientific Discovery" talks all about the different substances tried to prevent and cure scurvy. British sailors turned to have a daily ration of rum mixed with the lime juice.

IIRC the arctic expeditions found it to be 10mg a day

Or, the link between white rice and beriberi: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-disease-mystery-e...

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