The subject of lime-juice has suddenly become one of great public interest. When the chief outlines of the proceedings and experiences of the recent Arctic Expedition appeared in print, much surprise and concern were felt at the sad prostration of so many of the crew by scurvy, the most terrible of all the diseases of maritime life. A Committee of experienced men, old Arctic heroes and medical officers, has been appointed by the Admiralty to investigate the whole subject. We shall of course abstain from all comment or speculation here as to the result; but our readers will not be unwilling to learn something concerning the wonderful effects of lime-juice, by contrasting the state of affairs before and since the introduction of that beverage (or rather medicament) as a regular item on shipboard.

Scurvy is a disease concerning which medical men are a little divided in opinion. The relative values of pure air, fresh water, vegetable food, and general cleanliness have not been precisely ascertained. The disease sometimes attacks landsmen under varied circumstances. Martin, who visited the Shetlands early in the last century, found that the inhabitants suffered much from scurvy, which he attributed to the too great use of salt fish. Brand, near about the same period, learned that the Orkney Islanders were often unable to obtain any kind of bread whatever; as a consequence, this dire disease was rife among them. In Von Troil's account of Iceland in the same century, he found that the people lived much upon stale fish, fish livers and roes, fat and train-oil of whales and seals, and sour milk; their clothes were often wet, and the poor folks were constantly exposed to all the hardships of poverty. Such persons supplied the greater number of cases of scurvy in Iceland; those inhabitants who took less fish, sour whey, &c., and ate Iceland moss and other vegetables, were less affected. A singular remedy, or supposed remedy, for those attacked was to bind earth-worms over the blotches, &c. produced by the disease, renewing them as fast as they dried up. The FarÖe Islanders suffered much from this affliction at one time; but when the fishing declined and the people began to grow corn, the general health improved. Coming down to more recent times, Ireland suffered from scurvy during the famine years 1846-7; potatoes were almost unattainable, and other kinds of food high in price. Devon and Cornwall were at one time much afflicted in this way during the winter, the disease disappearing when vegetable food became abundant and cheap in spring and summer.

Soldiers and besieged cities have suffered terrible ordeals in this way. When Louis IX. led his crusaders against the Saracens in 1260, the French were much stricken with scurvy, owing to scarcity of food and water and the malarious state of the air. At the siege of Breda in 1625, and at that of Thorn in 1703; in the Hungarian campaign of the Austrians and Turks in 1720; at the siege of Quebec in 1760—the same calamity had to be borne. Towards the close of the last century, when Bonaparte crossed the Alps into Italy, his troops suffered greatly from this infliction. So did the British troops at the Cape in 1836. The armies on both sides were much afflicted with the malady during the Crimean War of 1854-5.

But it is in maritime life that this dreadful scourge used to be most appalling. It carried off more sailors than all other causes combined—nearly eighty thousand during the Seven Years' War alone. Salt food, absence of vegetables, foul or deficient water, defective cleanliness, mental depression, over-fatigue—some or other of these agencies were always at work. Vasco da Gama had full reason to know the effects of scurvy on his crew during his voyage to the East in 1497. Pigafetta, during a voyage near Cape Horn in 1519, was exposed to the evils of biscuit worm-eaten and reduced to repulsive mouldy dust, and scarcely any other kind of food; his crew were attacked with scurvy severely; their gums swelled so as to hide the teeth, and the upper and lower jaws were so diseased that mastication was nearly impossible. All our famous old navigators—Drake, Davis, Cavendish, Dampier, Hawkins—had mournful reason to know how great were the ravages produced on their crews by this distemper.

Perhaps the most sadly celebrated of all voyages, in regard to this particular visitation, was that of Captain (afterwards Lord) Anson. He was placed in command of a squadron bound for the South Seas to act against French and Spanish vessels and settlements. The narrative of his voyage was afterwards drawn up from his papers by Mr Walter, chaplain of the Centurion. Setting forth in 1740, his sojourn in foreign regions was a prolonged one. After the squadron had rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific, scurvy began to make its appearance among the crews; their long continuance at sea, the fatigues they had undergone, and various disappointments that had had to be endured, all contributed to the spread of the disease. There were few on board the Centurion who were free from its attacks. In the month of April forty-three men died. Anson hoped that, as they advanced north, the spread would be checked; but the death-rate was nearly doubled in May. As the ship did not reach port till the middle of June, and as the mortality went on increasing, the deaths reached a number exceeding two hundred; even among the remainder of the crew they could not muster at last more than six foremast-men in a watch fit for duty. To sum up: in the first two years of a five years' voyage, Anson lost no less than two-fifths of the original crew.

Anson's experience shewed that the scurvy was not driven back even when the conditions might seem to have been moderately favourable. 'It has been generally assumed that plenty of fresh provisions and water are effectual preventives. But it happened that in the present instance we had a considerable stock of fresh provisions on board, such as hogs and fowls, which were taken in at Paita; besides which we almost every day caught great abundance of bonitos, dolphins, and albicores. The unsettled season, which deprived us of the benefit of the trade-wind, proved extremely rainy; we were enabled to fill up our water-casks about as fast as they were emptied; and each man had five pints of water per day. Notwithstanding all this, the sick were not relieved, nor the spread of the disease retarded. The ventilation too was good, the decks and cabins well attended to, and ports left open as much as possible.' Another passage in the narrative tends to shew that the officers were much impressed with this failure of many preventives which are usually regarded as very important. 'All I have aimed at is only to shew that in some instances the cure and prevention of the disease are alike impossible by any management, or by the application of any remedies which can be made use of at sea. Indeed I am myself fully persuaded that when it has once got to a certain head, there are no other means in nature for relieving the diseased but carrying them on shore, or at least bringing them into the neighbourhood of land.'

Thus wrote an observant man in the days when the remarkable qualities of lime-juice were little known. Later in the same century, Captain Cook, owing either to better management or to being exposed to less unfavourable circumstances, or to both causes combined, fared better than Lord Anson. Although he had a little lime-juice, he reserved that for medical cases. He gave his men sweet malt-wort; another article administered was sowens, obtained by long steeping oatmeal in water until the liquid becomes a little sour; and sour-kraut, consisting of slices of cabbage salted, pressed down, fermented, and barrelled—without vinegar. Cook lost only one man from scurvy out of a hundred and eighteen, during voyages that lasted three years, and in oceans that ranged over so much as a hundred and twenty degrees in latitude. Quite at the close of the century, PÉron during a voyage of discovery suffered greatly; but everything was against him. Putrefying meat, worm-eaten biscuit, foul water—all tended to produce such a state of matters that not a soul on board was exempt from scurvy; only four, including officers of the watch, were able to remain on deck. The second surgeon M. Taillefer, behaved heroically. Although himself affected, he was employed at all hours in attendance on the rest—at once their physician, comforter, and friend.

And now we come to the subject of lime-juice, a liquid which, on the concurrent testimony of all competent persons, possesses a remarkable power, both in preventing attacks of scurvy, and in curing the disease when the symptoms have already made themselves manifest.

How the discovery arose, no one can now say; probably the fact grew upon men's attention by degrees, without any special discovery at any particular date. That vegetables and fruits are acceptable when scurvy has made its appearance, has been known for centuries past. The potato, for instance, has often been purposely adopted as an article of diet in prisons, on the occurrence of this disease, with good effect—a few pounds of this root being added to the weekly rations. Countries in which oranges and lemons are abundant and cheap have not been much affected with the malady. In 1564 a Dutch ship, bringing a cargo of oranges and lemons from Spain, was attacked with scurvy; the men were supplied plentifully with the fruit, and recovered. Other varieties of the same genus, such as the lime, citron, and shaddock, gradually became recognised as possessing much value in cases of this malady. In 1636 Mr Woodall, a medical officer in the navy, published his Surgeon's Assistant, in which he dwelt forcibly on the great importance of employing fruits of this class. He expressed an opinion that oranges, lemons, and the like, come well to maturity in the intertropical zone where scurvy is most rife, and in a humble thankful spirit commented thus on the fact: 'I have often found it true that where a disease most reigneth, even there God hath appointed the best remedies for the same, if it be His will they should be discovered and used.' It was more than a century later that Dr Lind wrote especially on this subject, emphatically pronouncing that the juice of oranges and lemons is a better remedy for scurvy than any other known medicament. Lord Anson's disastrous experience had drawn public attention to the subject, and more attention was paid to Lind than had been bestowed on Woodall.

Nevertheless, the eighteenth century nearly closed before the English government were roused to action in the matter. To Sir Gilbert Blane is due the honour of inducing the Admiralty to furnish a supply of lime-juice to all ships of the royal navy, especially those starting on long voyages. The effect was wonderful. The records of the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar, near Gosport, shewed that one thousand four hundred and fifty-seven cases of scurvy were admitted in 1780, whereas in 1806 there was only one single case; the introduction of lime-juice as a regular item in ships' supplies having taken place in the intervening period. Scurvy became quite a rare disease on shipboard; and many ships' surgeons are said to have advanced towards middle life without having seen an instance of it. When Captain Parry organised his expeditions to the icy regions, he was sedulously attentive to this as well as to all other matters connected with the health and well-being of his crews. As he found that some of his men occasionally shirked the lime-juice given out to them, he adopted the plan of mustering them every day, and seeing that every one drank off his due allowance.

When the juice has been obtained by the aid of a screw-press or any other means, it is heavy, cloudy, and sour. A proportion of ten per cent. of spirit is added to preserve the juice from being too much affected by tropical heats, and also to modify the possible effect of too great acidity. The mixture is carefully bottled for sea-use; and the sailors and marines begin to drink it about a fortnight after leaving port. About an ounce a day per man is the usual allowance, often mixed with sugar in their grog; the quantity is increased if any symptoms of scurvy make their appearance. Lime-juice may be preserved in the same way as ripe fruits by placing the bottles containing it in water, boiling for half an hour, gradually cooling, and hermetically sealing. Dr Leach, consulted by the Board of Trade, strongly recommended the use of lime-juice in all emigrant and other passenger ships, and drew up a dietary scale for this purpose. An act of parliament had before that date been passed, directing the adoption of this medicament in the mercantile marine; but the lime-juice supplied by contractors was found to be frequently so grossly adulterated that scurvy began to appear. Whereupon a further statute ordered that all lime-juice should be officially inspected before being placed on shipboard. One ounce daily per head is now a pretty general allowance in all ships alike. The better class of passenger-ship owners, such as Messrs Wigram, had long before adopted the system, without waiting for any official pressure.

It is now, to sum up, admitted beyond doubt or cavil, that lime-juice is the most valuable of all known agents for warding off scurvy, or for curing when the disease has made its appearance.

In an earlier paragraph we briefly adverted to the fact that a Committee is officially examining into the circumstances connected with the outbreak of scurvy in the Alert and Discovery. Of course no attempt will be made here to anticipate the result, nor to pronounce an opinion on the question involved. But Captain Sir George Nares has himself made public some remarkable observations on the matter, revealing facts never before so fully known to those who are most directly interested in the subject. In a speech delivered at Guildhall, the gallant officer said: 'No sledge-party employed in the Arctic regions in the cold month of April has ever been able to issue a regular ration of lime-juice. Every commander has desired to continue the daily issue while travelling, as recommended by medical authorities; but all have failed in doing so during the cold weather. In addition to the extra weight to be dragged that its carriage would entail, there is the more serious consideration of the time and fuel necessary to melt it.... After the middle of May, when the weather is warmer, lime-juice can be (and was) used as a ration. Of course hereafter lime-juice in some shape or other must be carried in all sledging-journeys; and I earnestly trust that some means will be found to make it into a lozenge; for as a fluid, there is and always will be extreme difficulty in using it in cold weather, unless Arctic travelling is considerably curtailed. Owing to the thaw which sets in before the return of the sledges, in its present state it must be carried in bottles; but up to the middle of May it remains frozen as solid as a rock. If the bottles have not already been broken by the jolting of the sledge or the freezing of the contents, they have to be broken on purpose before chipping off a piece of the frozen lime-juice, as if it were a piece of stone.' Cannot our pharmaceutical chemists come to the rescue, and devise some mode of making lime-juice into small convenient lozenges or dry confections?