The article makes the clear claim that while there was beer on board there was no Scurvy.
Is the article wrong? Does beer have vitamin C? Does beer have something else that also cures Scurvy? Does beer running out also coincide with someone else running out that cures scurvy? Does beer running out also coincide with the body's natural ability to coast on no vitamin C? Is there something else in play that I can't think of?
I'm not qualified to answer that. I do know enough history to believe that the article was written be an expert in the age of sail and so I am inclined to believe claims that I didn't already know are facts.
You comment reads like someone took the simplified 4th grade history and repeating a fact out of context - and so I'm inclined to believe you are wrong in some way, but that is only my guess. If you (or someone else) can cite better evidence I will change my mind, for now I'm sticking with my comment as correct.
Yes. Or more to the point, it is uncritically repeating the medical theories of its eighteenth-century sources, which were wrong. See also [0], [1]. People had a really hard time figuring out how to stop scurvy, and the use of citrus as a remedy was not generally accepted until well into the nineteenth century.
> Does beer have vitamin C?
No.
> Does beer have something else that also cures Scurvy
Beer staying fresh seems like a proxy for voyage duration. Longer trips means more likely to have run out of beer/vitamin C sources. No beer probably means no dock where sailors could have consumed anything other than highly preserved food.
Beer does not cure scurvy. Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C, which is not in beer.
The article makes the clear claim that while there was beer on board there was no Scurvy.
Is the article wrong? Does beer have vitamin C? Does beer have something else that also cures Scurvy? Does beer running out also coincide with someone else running out that cures scurvy? Does beer running out also coincide with the body's natural ability to coast on no vitamin C? Is there something else in play that I can't think of?
I'm not qualified to answer that. I do know enough history to believe that the article was written be an expert in the age of sail and so I am inclined to believe claims that I didn't already know are facts.
You comment reads like someone took the simplified 4th grade history and repeating a fact out of context - and so I'm inclined to believe you are wrong in some way, but that is only my guess. If you (or someone else) can cite better evidence I will change my mind, for now I'm sticking with my comment as correct.
> Is the article wrong?
Yes. Or more to the point, it is uncritically repeating the medical theories of its eighteenth-century sources, which were wrong. See also [0], [1]. People had a really hard time figuring out how to stop scurvy, and the use of citrus as a remedy was not generally accepted until well into the nineteenth century.
> Does beer have vitamin C?
No.
> Does beer have something else that also cures Scurvy
No. Scurvy is vitamin-C deficiency.
[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12810402/
[1]: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/04/the-budweiser-di...
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Beer staying fresh seems like a proxy for voyage duration. Longer trips means more likely to have run out of beer/vitamin C sources. No beer probably means no dock where sailors could have consumed anything other than highly preserved food.