The Vitamin C Saga

Folks, welcome to All Things Considered.

The history of medicine certainly makes quite some interesting reading. This is because, unlike other arts and science, there always appears to be two camps at loggerheads in medicine: the more orthodox, and traditionally oriented members, and those who are more flexible and holistically oriented. As always, the two always never seem to agree. The battles are always fought in the interest of the patients whom the two camps appear to protect, and in the name of human safety. But we know that pride, status, ego, economic motives, power and control, are the real reasons behind them.

You may ask, what has this got to do with vitamin C, a relatively harmless, off-the-counter, nutritional supplement? The story you're about to hear came from different sources, and we present them to you as we were told. If you want full details, please consult Barbara Griggs' Green Pharmacy, which delves more into the history of herbalism, and from which most of the information for this write up was taken.

You'll recall that the British Empire once boasted of the largest and most efficient Navy in the world, and the British Admiralty administered its operation. Before 1795, tens of thousands of British sailors were dying annually of scurvy, a disease due to nutritional lack of vitamin C. The Admiralty did not see the need for the sailors to have vitamin C supplementation because the orthodox physicians whose task it was to treat scurvy, had a different idea as to its management and frowned at the idea of having lemon juice as a preventive measure. Meanwhile, the Dutch Navy, whose sailors had Sauerkraut as part of their regular diet, which contains vitamin C, suffered very little from scurvy.

While the British sailors were dying (from scurvy), the orthodox medical establishment was busy propounding scurvy-causing theories such as: 'scurvy was a new disease sent by God as a punishment for the sins of the world (Eugalero, 1641); scurvy was caused by unwholesome air, and either a 'salino-sulphureous dyscrasy of the blood' (Dr. Willis, 1667); the cause of scurvy was 'an extraordinary separation of of the serous part of the blood from the crassamentum' (Boerheave, 17th Century). Cures ranged from 'repeated bleedings and coolings, warming remedies, purges, deobstruents (open the bowels and pores), to mercury. Of course, the later was sure to quickly terminate the lives of the sufferers.

The more holistic practitioners, and 'unqualified' London street doctors who gave their patients extracts of scurvy grass, or the herbs itself, were having resounding success in their treatment, but were held in contempt by their more 'highly qualified', counterparts. Scurvy grass was said to be flourishing along the banks of the River Thames at that time, and contained some appreciable quantity of vitamin C.

Meanwhile lives continued to be lost to scurvy due to the non provision of fresh vegetables or fruits in the diets of the British sailors. Estimates puts the number of British servicemen who died during the Seven Years War with France and Spain, at between 130,000 and 185,000.The majority were said to die from scurvy. It will also be recalled that as early as 1593, Sir John Hawkins had written of the curative powers of 'Sowre Orange and Lemons; John Woodhall's Surgeon's Mate, published in 1617, which also talked about the curative power of the Juice of Lemon, was in every ship, but no one paid attention.

But there was a silver cloud about to appear over the horizon. In 1747, a young naval surgeon by name of James Lind, conducted extensive trials and research into the role of vitamin C in the treatment and prevention of scurvy, and concluded that: 'Experience indeed sufficiently shows, that as greens or fresh vegetables with ripe fruits, are the best remedies for it, so they prove the most effective preservative against it."

As convincing and far-reaching as this findings may appear, it took the British another fifty years, yes, another fifty years, before the admiralty finally acknowledged the evidence and ordered the inclusion of lemon juice into sailors' diet.

The situation then is not much different from what obtains now. The moral of this story, if ever there is one, is easy to infer. So, folks, that's all for today from All Things Considered.