stefansson-wrangel-09-32-026r

THE SECOND WINTER AND THE TRAGIC END 255

Wet socks, I think. Careless. All day we faced a light
breeze and very cold. Various frost bites. My scurvy
pains were very pronounced to-day and part of the time
it was painful walking. The only thing fresh that we
have which I could use as an antiscorbutic is sour seal oil,
and I have eaten all that I could hold every day for some
time, but no signs of relief yet. Both of my heels have
deep cracks in them, which makes walking painful. Of all
the trips I have ever participated in, long or short, this
one is the worst for hard luck; or is it incompetence?”
We can now answer Knight’s last question in the nega-
tive. Apart from asking why they started out at all
when they were afraid of facing the rough ice because the
sled was too heavily loaded and therefore likely to
break—apart from such criticism, easy only after the
event, it is difficult to see how anyone would have been
likely beforehand to do more than perhaps disagree, as
people always do on matters of policy. Incompetence is
far too harsh a word, and in any case not the one needed
to describe the serious mistake Knight was making in
thinking that sour seal oil was an antiscorbutic. I am
unable to guess where he got that idea, for in my treat-
ment of Knight himself when he had scurvy in 1917 and
when the cure was almost magical in its rapidity, we used
only fresh meat. In our many discussions afterwards,
I do not remember it ever having been suggested that seal
oil, fermented by the Eskimo method and palatable to us
who are used to it, is of antiscorbutic value. Probably
Knight had read when he was home some popular article
saying that certain animal oils are rich in vitamins and
also that vitamins cure scurvy. 'Popular articles fre-
quently are loosely worded, for they are written not so
much to give sound information as to create in the reader