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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:37:...less fraught with seasickness, pirates, scurvy, mass drownings... (Alan Sinder)

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Awast Ye Scurvy Dogs!

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Daniel Waterhouse: “So it is a social visit! That is heroic—when a simple exchange of letters is so much less fraught with seasickness, pirates, scurvy, mass drownings[1]—” Daniel, as an empirical "on the edge" technological research scientist for the Royal Navy's think tank -- the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge-- knows more than the average individual about the dangers of cross Atlantic voyage when Winter is starting, and is right to fear nausea, pirates, scurvy, and the results of normal navigation in his day -- mass drowning.

Authored entries

Seasickness

Motion sickness, also called seasickness, carsickness, or airsickness depending on what one has been traveling in, is a condition in which the endolymph (the fluid found in the semicircular canals of the inner ears) becomes 'stirred up', causing confusion between the difference between apparent perceived movement (none or very little), and actual movement. It can result from lying in the berth of a rolling boat without being able to see the outside. Nausea is the most common and unpleasant symptom of motion sickness; in fact, nausea in Greek means seasickness (naus=ship). This sensation of unease and discomfort from the stomach, with the sufferer feeling that he is about to vomit (though he may not actually do so). Ear-anatomy-text-small.png
Diagram of the Inner Ear

Sudden jerky movements tend to be worse for provoking motion sickness than slower smooth ones, because they disrupt the fluid balance more. A 'corkscrewing' boat will upset more people than one that is gliding smoothly across the oncoming waves, and cars driving rapidly around winding roads or up and down a series of hills. Looking down into your lap to consult a map or attempting to read a book while a passenger in a car is another common cause of motion sickness.

Many 'cures' and preventatives for motion sickness have been proposed at various times. One which is both practical and effective is to simply look out of the window of the moving vehicle and to gaze into the distance towards the horizon in the direction in which you are moving. This helps to re-orient your inner sense of balance by reaffirming to your inner ear that yes you actually ARE moving. Fresh air blowing on your face can also be a relief.

Other cures for motion sickness rely on medication. Over-the-counter and prescription medications are readily available, eg. dramamine. Ginger is a mild anti-emetic and sucking on crystalised ginger or sipping ginger tea can help to relieve the nausea.

Astronauts suffer a form of motion sickness called space sickness (or space adaptation sickness), caused by the lack of gravity disturbing their sense of balance and the endolymph fluid in their inner ear.

Pirates in the Atlantic

The Jolly Roger is the traditional flag of European and American pirates, envisioned today as a skull over crossed bones, on a black field. However, there were many variations and additional emblems on actual Jolly Rogers. Calico Jack Rackham and Thomas Tew used variations with swords. Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard) used a skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and a spear or dart in the other while standing beside a bleeding heart. Bartholomew Roberts (a.k.a. Black Bart) had two variations: a man and a skeleton, who held a spear or dart in one hand, holding either an hourglass or a cup while toasting death or an armed man standing on two skulls over the letters ABH and AMH (a warning to residents of Barbados and Martinique that death awaited them). Dancing skeletons signified that the pirates cared little for their fate. Jolly-roger.png

Daniel's pursuer Blackbeard (1680? - November 22, 1718) was the nickname of Edward Teach alias Edward Thatch, a notorious English pirate who had a short reign of terror in the Caribbean Sea between 1716 and 1718. More under Pirates.

Scurvy

The condition Scurvy is characterized by general weakness, anemia, gum disease (gingivitis), and skin hemorrhages resulting from a lack of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in the diet. Scurvy is now most frequently seen in older, malnourished adults.

The emergence of scurvy

Scurvy did not emerge as a problem for maritime explorers until vessels started penetrating the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. Vasco da Gama lost two thirds of his crew to the disease while making his way to India in 1499. In 1520 Magellan lost more than 80 per cent while crossing the Pacific. Two voyages made by Pedro de Quiros early in the 17th century resulted in huge mortality from a sickness Sir Richard Hawkins called, after his venture into the South Seas, 'the plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners'.

Scurvy came to public notice in Britain after Commodore George Anson led a squadron into the Pacific in the 1740s to raid Spanish shipping. He lost all but one of his six ships, and two thirds of the crews he shipped (700 survived out of an original complement of 2000), most of them to scurvy. Their symptoms were vividly described by Richard Walter, the chaplain who wrote up the official account of the voyage. Here were descriptions of its ghastly traces: skin black as ink, ulcers, difficult respiration, rictus of the limbs, teeth falling out and, perhaps most revolting of all, a strange plethora of gum tissue sprouting out of the mouth, which immediately rotted and lent the victim's breath an abominable odour.

[paraphrasing Dava Sobel:] Scurvy made sailors appear ghastly, as if they were victims of a savage beating -- connective tissue deteriotated due to diet. Poor nutrition choices caused leakages in blood vessels. Men looked bruised in the absence of injury. If injured, wounds would not heal. Legs swelled and staggered under the pain of spontaneous hemorrhaging in muscles and joints. Teeth loosened and gums bled. When fatal, their breathing failed as their brains burst.

There were strange sensory and psychological effects too. Scurvy seems to have disarmed the sensory inhibitors that keep taste, smell and hearing under control and stop us from feeling too much. When sufferers got hold of the fruit they had been craving they swallowed it (said Walter) 'with emotions of the most voluptuous luxury'. The sound of a gunshot was enough to kill a man in the last stages of scurvy, while the smell of blossoms from the shore could cause him to cry out in agony. This susceptibility of the senses was accompanied by a disposition to cry at the slightest disappointment, and to yearn hopelessly and passionately for home.

Now we know that scurvy was a cocktail of vitamin deficiencies, mainly of C and B, sometimes compounded by an overdose of A from eating seals' livers. Altogether these produced a breakdown in the cellular structure of the body, evident in the putrescence of the flesh and bones of sufferers, together with night blindness and personality disorders associated with pellagra. In the 18th century no one knew what caused scurvy, whose symptoms were so various it was sometimes mistaken for asthma, leprosy, syphilis, dysentery and madness.

Prevention

Physicians speculated that it was owing to a salt diet, to a lack of oxygen in the body, to fat skimmed from the ships' boiling pans, to bad air, to thickening of the blood, to sugar, to melancholy; but no one knew for certain. People were aware that once victims were on shore they could be recovered by eating scurvy grass, wild celery, wood sorrel, nasturtiums, brooklime, Kerguelen cabbage ( Pringlea antiscorbutica ), cabbage trees and other esculent plants growing on the shores of distant islands. Fruit and palm wine were also esteemed to be fine remedies, and since 1757, when James Lind published A Treatise of the Scurvy, there was experimental proof that citrus had a rapid beneficial effect.

James Lind: A Treatise of the Scurvy -- Of the Prevention of the Scurvy

I shall conclude the precepts relating to the preservation of seamen with showing the best means of obviating many inconveniences which attend long voyages and of removing the several causes productive of this mischief. The following are the experiments: On the 20th May, 1747, I took twelve patients in the scurvy on board the Salisbury at sea. Their cases were as similar as I could have them. They all in general had putrid gums, the spots and lassitude, with weakness of their knees. They lay together in one place, being a proper apartment for the sick in the fore-hold; and had one diet in common to all, viz., water gruel sweetened with sugar in the morning; fresh mutton broth often times for dinner; at other times puddings, boiled biscuit with sugar etc.; and for supper barley, raisins, rice and currants, sago and wine, or the like. Two of these were ordered each a quart of cyder a day. Two others took twenty five gutts of elixir vitriol three times a day upon an empty stomach, using a gargle strongly acidulated with it for their mouths. Two others took two spoonfuls of vinegar three times a day upon an empty stomach, having their gruels and their other food well acidulated with it, as also the gargle for the mouth. Two of the worst patients, with the tendons in the ham rigid (a symptom none the rest had) were put under a course of sea water. Of this they drank half a pint every day and sometimes more or less as it operated by way of gentle physic. Two others had each two oranges and one lemon given them every day. These they eat with greediness at different times upon an empty stomach. They continued but six days under this course, having consumed the quantity that could be spared. The two remaining patients took the bigness of a nutmeg three times a day of an electuray recommended by an hospital surgeon made of garlic, mustard seed, rad. raphan., balsam of Peru and gum myrrh, using for common drink narley water well acidulated with tamarinds, by a decoction of wich, with the addition of cremor tartar, they were gently purged three or four times during the course. The consequence was that the most sudden and visible good effects were perceived from the use of the oranges and lemons; one of those who had taken them being at the end of six days fit four duty. The spots were not indeed at that time quite off his body, nor his gums sound; but without any other medicine than a gargarism or elixir of vitriol he became quite healthy before we came into Plymouth, which was on the 16th June. The other was the best recovered of any in his condition, and being now deemed pretty well was appointed nurse to the rest of the sick …

As I shall have occasion elsewhere to take notice of the effects of other medicines in this disease, I shall here only observe that the result of all my experiments was that oranges and lemons were the most effectual remedies for this distemper at sea. I am apt to think oranges preferable to lemons, though it was principally oranges which so speedily and surprisingly recovered Lord Anson's people at the Island of Tinian, of which that noble, brave and experienced commander was so sensible that before he left the island one man was ordered on shore from each mess to lay in a stock of them for their future security. … Perhaps one history more may suffice to put this out of doubt.

James Lind: “A Treatise of the Scurvy in Three Parts. Containing an inquiry into the Nature, Causes and Cure of that Disease, together with a Critical and Chronological View of what has been published on the subject.”

Captain James Cook's Background

Scurvy was the scourge of the Royal Navy for decades, and Captain Cook is widely credited with conquering it. James Cook became an apprentice with a shipping company. His first voyages he worked on ships that carried coal to English ports. In 1755, during the French - Indian war, Cook joined the British navy. In 1759 he was given a dangerous wartime mission. He was to enter French territory and survey the St. Lawrence river for the British navy. The charts that he made during this voyage contributed to the capture of the French city of Quebec later in that year. James Cook made three voyages to the Pacific. His first voyage, in 1768, the navy appointed Cook to lead an expedition to Tahiti. On the Endeavour they left in August and reached Tahiti in April of 1769. On the island scientists watched the planet Venus pass between the Earth and the Sun. He had the Harrison H-4 chronometer clone K-1 with him for one of the Longitude trials.

This was the main goal of this voyage but Cook had been given secret orders to find an unknown continent in the south Pacific. He was told to find it because geographers believed that it kept the world in balance, however Cook was unable to find it. In October of 1769 Cook became the first European man to visit New Zealand. In April of 1770 the Endeavor sailed to Botany Bay on the east coast of Australia. Cook claimed the entire east coast of Australia for Great Britain. He returned to England in July of 1771. During this voyage, from 1678 - 1771, Cook became the first ship captain to prevent an outbreak of scurvy. Cook had heard that scurvy was caused by a lack of fresh vegetables and fruits. To prevent an outbreak he served his sailor's fruit and sauerkraut.

Sauerkraut

Dutch merchant ships were well supplied with sauerkraut for long voyages to the Far East and the Americas, while the crews of Holland's commercial rivals at sea were dying of scurvy. Apart from its value as a source of vitamin C, sauerkraut is also rich in calcium: a boon for poor people who could not afford quantities of milk and cheese in their diet; and in potassium, vital for the efficient functioning of our cells.

Mass Drownings

All good Englishmen would know of the fate of the Spanish Armada. On May 28, 1588 the Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, began to set sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel. At this time the English fleet was prepared and waiting in Plymouth for news of Spanish movements. It took until May 30 for all ships to leave port, and on the same day Elizabeth's ambassador Dr Valentine Dale met Parma's representatives to begin peace negotions. It was not until July 17 that the peace negotiations were wholly abandoned. The Armada was forced to return to Spain by sailing around the northern coasts of Scotland and Ireland - a dangerous voyage which only 67 ships and around 10,000 men survived. Total English casualties were counted at one hundred, with no ships lost.

Daniel must know of the events of 1707, another tragic year for the Royal Navy. In the Isles of Scilly, a large proportion of the British Navy fleet were wrecked off Scilly. As the fleet was returning home victorious, the fleets’ longitude was misjudged and in bad visibility, the flagship HMS Association along with others of the fleet were wrecked on the western approaches. Nearly 2000 seamen drowned.

Sir Clowdisley Shovell was the commander of the fleet and the most respected officer of his day. He had ignored earlier warnings that the ships were off course; one crew member had smelt the burning kelp pits which were so synonymous with Scilly. Another of the crew, knowing full well it was a hanging offense to do so, offered his logs with more correct bearings out of fear. He was hanged on the spot for mutiny. The flagship Association was wrecked on the Gilstone losing all of her crew, other ships wrecked were the HMS Eagle and HMS Romney were scattered amongst the Isles, only one of the five ships managed to negotiate their way clear of ledges and rocks around the Islands.

Sir Clowdisley Shovell was washed up on Porth Hellick beach on St Mary’s, as one of the two survivors of the sea wreck. Legend states, he was still alive until a local woman murdered him in his weakened state in order to steal his emerald ring. Other reports say that the local bit Sir Clowdisley's finger off in order to retrieve the treasure. She revealed her crime in a deathbed confession, offering the ring to her clergyman as proof of her guilt and contrition.

Sir Clowdisley Shovell was buried in a simple grave which can still be seen in the form of a granite headstone at Porth Hellick, however, the body was exhumed and reburied in Westminster abbey soon afterwards. Scilly became the final resting place for officers to ordinary seamen. This tragic event was undoubtedly of great national importance and was arguably the most famous period of Scilly’s history. The news would definitely the talking point of the day and the catastrophe triggered the Longitude Act of 1714. Bartholomew_Roberts.png

  1. Longitude page 12 describes the Scillies tragedy of 1707

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