Allied to rickets and resembling it in many of its characteristics is the once dreaded disease of scurvy. Scurvy is still occasionally seen in hospitals, especially among children. It was once the scourge of the navy, when sailors were fed for long periods exclusively on salt meat and biscuits. It was, however, discovered that this painful disease was cured by the return of its victims to an ordinary mixed diet, and more particularly to the use of fresh vegetables and potatoes. Hence it was argued that scurvy was caused by the lack of the salts and acids contained in vegetables, fruits and potatoes. Strange to say it is not, however, sufficient in order to prevent scurvy to give the salts and acids contained in vegetables, though in cases when it is impossible, owing to their bulk, to carry even compressed vegetables, lime or lemon juice served daily as a ration to sailors will commonly prevent the disease. It has, in fact, by this means been banished from our navy.

There are some persons who are unwilling to accept the dicta of science and experience, and who put their own uninformed belief before knowledge. The breakdown of the Nares expedition to the North Pole is an example in point, and gave another pitiable illustration, if any were needed, of the cause of scurvy. Commander Nares would not follow the advice of the doctor, who urged that it was necessary for the sleighing parties, bound on long journeys across the ice, to take lime juice with them. He considered that dependence on lime juice was a doctor's fad, and held the view that scurvy was caused by darkness, depression, etc., and believed that alcohol would be more useful to the men than lime juice. The party consequently completely broke down with scurvy. The pitiful story is thus told in the pages of the British Medical Journal, December, 1876: -

"The suffering of the men on these expeditions across the ice was frightful; without exaggeration, says one of the authors of the log-journals, ' they may have been said to have suffered agonies '. Before they were out a week or a fortnight, they were ravaged by scurvy; their limbs swelled; their teeth fell loose; the blood was effused in patches; one half of them became prostrate, fetid, miserable beings, whose existence was intolerable to themselves and those around them. Every sledge party without an exception broke down prematurely from scurvy: not only so but the disease seems to have taken all the commanders of the sledge parties by surprise; each in turn expresses his astonishment, horror and terror of this affliction, when, its full force being felt, he can no longer shut his eyes to its nature, and each bewails pathetically his want of lime juice. ' Oh, that I had a ton of it!' writes Lieutenant Rawson, and Commander Markham groans over his pitiful modicum of two small bottles for each sledge; does not venture to begin to use it, until, defeated by the prostration of his party, from the fearful ravages of scurvy he has resolved to turn back; and then finds it necessary to issue only a small quantity to the sick alone, every other day, and even this expedient exhausts his store in about ten days.

"Some of the parties utterly, rapidly and completely broke down with scurvy. All were baffled and beaten by it, and all suffered fearfully from its horrible infliction. Since the days of our earlier navigators no such sad story has come home as that of the disablement and breakdown from sickness of this splendidly manned and lavishly found expedition."

They left the spirit casks behind them on the ice-fields, having learnt by bitter experience another well-known dietetic lesson, - that in cold and fatigue alcohol is worse than useless; but that under these conditions hot tea or coffee is the best restorative.