stefansson-wrangel-09-40-010-002

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temper of the north, ' says Pringle, 'is the more observable, as they seldom
taste vegetables, bread never.' Cook's Voyages, from 1772 to 1775. vol. 11,
P. 376."

"Considering fresh meat, or the muscular part of animals, chemically,
I see no reason why it should not be efficacious in preventing or curing
the scurvy. Oxygene it contains, when raw, in a state of loose combination
though probably not in such large proportion as vegetable substances, even
such as are not acid. I had noticed in travellers of great respectability
passages that confirm this idea. The nations inhabiting the cold and dreary
regions on the eastern shores of Asia, and the opposite coasts of America,
seem to have learned from experience, that fresh, or at least unsalted fish is
a preventative of the scurvy, or a remedy for it. Thus Dr. Pallas (Reife, 111.
47.) describes the Ostiack Tartars of the Oby, as preparing their winter
stores altogether without salt. They are extremely apt, when disabled by age
or infirmities, to become scorbutic. In winter they revenously devour their
frozen fish raw, a practice which the neighbouring Russians imitate, esteem-
ing them a preservative against the scurvy.' "

P. 61. "Dr. Lind, though he has full confidence in green vegetables,
and affirms that the scurvy never can 'become a general, fatal, and destruct-
ive calamity,’ where they abound, and the proper method of treatment is
known and pursued; concludes from a number of comparative trials that certain
patients in Haslar Hospital in general grew better, notwithstanding they ab-
stained altogether, from vegetables. 'This strict abstinence from the fruits
of the earth,' says he, 'was continued long enough to convince me, that the
disease would often, from various circumstances, take a favourable turn, in-
dependent of any diet, medicine, or regimen.' We have nothing, I presume, to
oppose in point of conclusiveness to such experiments made by a physician so
intelligent and so experienced in this particular disease."

Hoping this information will be of interest to you, I am

Sincerely yours.
L G Rountree

LGR:MD