by David I. Harvie

Limeys is the dramatic history of Dr James Lind’s heroic efforts to find a cure for the dreaded scurvy in the face of prejudice and political and establishment antipathy.

In the three centuries up to 1800, it has been estimated that scurvy killed at least two million sailors. It was characterised by rotting gums, foetid breath, swelling limbs, malaise and haemorrhaging. Desperate men took any ‘cure’ offered – common purging or cupping, urine mouthwashes, ingestion of sulphuric acid, spruce beer or sauerkraut, even burial up to the neck in the sand. Most died.

In 1747 Lind, a Scottish surgeon who sailed with the Royal Navy, became the first to prove the efficacy of citrus juice in combating the disease. Yet he was unable to penetrate the high-minded disregard of those in authority, or to persuade them to enforce the universal consumption of fruit. Thousands needlessly dies and it was 1795 before the findings were accepted. By this time, James Lind had been dead for a year. Even then, the authorities failed humanity by negligent misunderstanding and giving commerce priority; scurvy returned and only after the First World War were Lind’s conclusions fully vindicated.

• Paperback
• 336 pages
• ISBN: 9780750939935