Abstract
THE admirably illustrated volume which has just appeared in this uninviting form, tells a tale of adventures as interesting and heroic as anything in the long record of Arctic discovery. It throws little light on the question to which public attention has been too much directed this winter—whether any of the misfortunes of the expedition were due to the officers who started the sledge p arties without adequate supplies of lime-juice. The report of the Scurvy Committee will appear in a few days. In the mean time it is clear that every pound weight on the sledges was calculated with the utmost care; that wherever anything was to be used in a fluid state an adequate corresponding supply of fuel needed to be carried; that none of the officers, judging from the experience of previous sledge expeditions, seem to have anticipated scurvy; and above all that the work of all the parties on and at the edge of the hitherto untrodden Palæocrystic sea proved so frightfully severe that if lime-juice in abundant rations had been taken the sufferings of the men would probably have been only mitigated. It is to the severity of the work, not to the absence of lime-juice, that we believe the terrible outbreaks of scurvy which crippled the sledging parties to have been really due. In Commander Markham's Journal, written on the spot a month out from the ship, he says, “The invalids are not improving, and we are inclined to believe that they are all attacked with scurvy, though we have not been led to suppose that there is any probability of our being so afflicted and are ignorant of the symptoms.” Swollen knees and ankles are of frequent occurrence in all Arctic sledging expeditions, and they were prepared to expect as much. Scurvy had scarcely been thought of, and the fact that it had not been thought of by officers whose lives and the lives of their men depended on their forethought, and who had studied the experience of their predecessors with anxious care, is sufficient to show that, à priori, there was little or no probability of its appearance. After the experience of Markham's, Aldrich's, and Beaumont's parties, no future travellers over the “Palæocrystic” will omit their lime-juice, but these officers seem all to have been unprepared for scurvy. Aldrich says in his journal, 38th day out:—
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The Arctic Blue-Book . Nature 15, 505–507 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/015505a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/015505a0