What is scurvy exactly?

Scurvy is a nasty disease that results from a vitamin C deficiency. When you don't get enough vitamin C, your gums start bleeding and you are easily bruised, and if it goes untreated you will eventually die. Today, most people today get plenty of vitamin C from eating fresh fruits and vegetables. But in the centuries before fast steam ships could get you across oceans in a matter of days instead of weeks or months, many sailing voyages lasted for months or even years. It was common for sailors to go a very long time without eating any fresh fruits or vegetables at all. It was such a huge problem that historian Stephen Brown estimates more people died of scurvy than of storms and shipwrecks, battles at sea, and all other diseases combined before a cure was discovered. The first inkling that citrus might be a cure came in 1747 with with Dr. James Lind's experiments onboard a British naval vessel. But even then they didn't know it was the vitamin C that was saving lives, or that there were such things as vitamins at all. It took more than a century for the connection to be widely recognized and understood. If you want to read more about the history of scurvy, click here to read more, perhaps while enjoying a nice cold glass of lemonade (recipe below). You can swap out limes for lemons if you prefer, but do note that limes have only about half as much vitamin C as lemons if you are planning any long voyages.