A vital contribution to the understanding of scurvy which caused havoc aboard ships until the late eighteenth century. Finding a cure for scurvy, along with the calculation of longitude, ushered in the era of grands voyages. The voyages of Cook, Vancouver, Flinders, La Perouse, Baudin, Freycinet and Dumont d’Urville were all made possible but to these discoveries.
“The bibliographical importance of this pamphlet, which contains the discourse given to the Royal Society by its President prior to the presentation to Mrs. Cook (in Cook’s absence on his third voyage) of the Copley medal is two-fold. In the first place it contains the first appearance in print of Cook’s paper on the the method taken for preserving the health of the crew of the Resolution during his second voyage - the paper which earned him the medal. Secondly, Pringle’s discourse was considered sufficiently important for the Commissioners of Longitude to ask his permission to include it in the official account of the second voyage, this was forthcoming and the discourse was printed in extenso. Cook’s paper was subsequently reproduced in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society” (Holmes).
Pringle, in addition to being President of the Royal Society, was Surgeon-in-Chief of the Army, and as such was an ardent supporter of the naval surgeon, David MacBride (1726-78), who “recommended to the Admiralty in 1767 the use of fresh wort, or infusion of malt, in the treatment of scurvy” (ODNB). Indeed, Pringle chose the occasion of the presentation of Cook’s Copley Gold Medal to publicize MacBride’s “ingenious theory,” using Cook as his authority.
On his first voyage on the Endeavour, Cook not only replenished provisions of fruit and vegetables at every opportunity, but included sauerkraut in the crew’s diet - two pounds per man, per week. On his return, he reported no serious outbreaks of scurvy and largely attributed this to sauerkraut. He trialled the diet again on his second voyage. In his three years away just a single man perished from the disease.
He had in fact written to Pringle from Plymouth Sound on July 7: “I entirely agree with you that the dearness of the rob of lemon and oranges will hinder them from being furnished in large quantities. But I do not think this so necessary; for though they may assist other things, I have not great opinion of them alone. Nor have I a higher opinion of vinegar.” Lloyd and Coulter (Medicine and the Navy) III.
Beddie 1289 & 1290; Garrison-Morton 2156 & 3714; Holmes 20; Norman 508.
