stefansson-wrangel-09-40-004-006

Scurvy 6.

1917-18 if I continued on the diet forced on me
by local conditions in the Mackenzie delta
where I was buying dogs, but I intended to
counteract this by a prompt change to a meat
or fish diet so soon as that task was done.
But just then I was taken with typhoid, followed
by pneumonia and pleurisy; and the diet approved
and forced on my by those under whose charge
I was while extremely ill was one by no
means calculated to counteract scurvy -ordinary
canned milk. But as this case, both in its
cause and cure, differs markedly from the above
I shall decide that space does not warrant my
including a full account of it here.

The present article together with the
one above mentioned and considerable material
gathered but not published make clear the
some and suggest others of the following
conclusions. While these may not be exactly
new, it is to be judged by the confused nature
of may medical works still in use for reference
by physicians that further testimony would not
be amiss.

It seems then that:

(1) The strongest arti-scorbutic
qualities riside in certain fresh foods and
diminish or disappear with storage by any of
the common methods of preservation - canning,
pickling, drying, etc. Fresh tomatoes may
be valuable (I have never tried them) but canned
tomatoes are of little or no value; fresh
potatoes are good but dessicated potatoes
have shown little or no adequacy in our
expedition when tried in my absence by
believers in that form of diet; the juice
just expressed from the fresh lime is said
to be excellent and I have nor reason to
doubt it, but bottled lime juice has never
yet prevented scurvy. (I have just recently
gathered interesting but scarcely needed
testimony on this point from the Royal N. W.
Mounted Police as to the scurvy winter of
1898-9.)

(2). Cooking lessens of destroys
the anti-scorbutic value of most or all
foods. Three average raw potatoes are commonly
said by miners to definitely turn the tide
of scurvy that has not reached an extreme stage;
in our own expedition, boiled and roasted fresh
bear meat did not relieve scurvy except with
such e slowness that it is debatable just
what its effect was, if any. Our party and
persons known to me have had the same experience
with venison. I am of the opinion that most
men, if left to their own inclinations and supplied
with aboundant cooked, fresh meat will avoid
scurvy; but cooked meat acts but slowly on an
advanced case - the efficiencyof if depending
probably on the "rareness" of the cooked meat.

(3) Meat and fish slightly or well