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A Preventable Plague
Why scurvy ravaged humanity for centuries
Jacques Cartier thought he and his men had found the Northwest Passage to China, but before they could claim their place in history, they would have to wait out a harsh Canadian winter. Cartier’s ships spent November 1535 through April 1536 stuck near what is today Quebec City; they could not get past the rapids in the St. Lawrence River and soon found themselves stuck in the ice.
A 1541 map of the area tells the story succinctly, if a bit incorrectly. Near the island where the Frenchmen wintered, the mapmaker wrote: “Here many French died of hunger.”
Some of the French sailors did starve, but there was a far more deadly problem in their makeshift settlement. A mysterious disease attacked every single member of the French expedition. Sailors saw their limbs swell, and their gums began to rot. They lost their teeth. Some became feverish and suffered from convulsions. One account of the suffering recorded that the disease
spread itselfe amongst us after the strangest sort that ever was eyther heard of or seene, insomuch as some did lose all their strength, and could not stand on their feete, then…
