Anyone who believes it was lemons would be a few years out of date. Cook was dead some twenty years before the Admiralty got around to handing out lemon juice to sailors.
Cook never carried lemons or limes on board. The nearest thing he would have had was barrels of sauerkraut and a fruit juice concentrate called 'rob'. As both were boiled up in an effort to preserve them for the long voyage, they were deficient in most of their vitamin content.
Scurvy was a huge problem to sailors of old. It was little understood. Magellan for example lost most of his crew to it while crossing the Pacific. It was treated more with superstition than useful remedy. Sailors thought that the touch of earth could cure it. We now know it is lack of vitamin C and B.
An Edinburgh physician, James Lind wrote, 'Treatise on Scurvy' in 1754. In it he recommended citrus fruit and fresh vegetables. We are taught to believe that Cook wisely adopted the practice from the start. The truth is he probably ignored it.
Cook never carried lemons or limes on board. The nearest thing he would have had was barrels of sauerkraut and a fruit juice concentrate called 'rob'. As both were boiled up in an effort to preserve them for the long voyage, they were deficient in most of their vitamin content.
Scurvy was a huge problem to sailors of old. It was little understood. Magellan for example lost most of his crew to it while crossing the Pacific. It was treated more with superstition than useful remedy. Sailors thought that the touch of earth could cure it. We now know it is lack of vitamin C and B.
An Edinburgh physician, James Lind wrote, 'Treatise on Scurvy' in 1754. In it he recommended citrus fruit and fresh vegetables. We are taught to believe that Cook wisely adopted the practice from the start. The truth is he probably ignored it.