“The roaring water fell down the waterfall
Screaming and rushing seen by all!
Then it stopped with a splash and blow!
This dance of Aqua is a beautiful show!”
These little animals would drive you crazy but crazy fact is that those who were crazy enough to eat them were spared of a dangerous disease which used to affect the sailors!
read on!
Early morning ritual in our house was to eat the chyawanprash! This was a concoction which was sweet and sour and looked like jam!
One spoon was the standard and though I never had a taste for it, I did not mind eating it once in a while!
I have seen people eating it like jam spread on a bread!
It was best to just put it in the mouth and get it over with!
The main component of course was the Gooseberry which was a popular fruit in our house! During the season they used to buy in bunch and make the pickle! If you had nothing in the house to eat, then you would always have curd rice with either the lemon or the Gooseberry pickle!
This was the practice for ages when no one even knew that the effective ingredient we are taking is the Vitamin C!
Of course everyone knows about the dreaded disease of scurvy and James Lind!
But though James did recommend the use of Lemon and Orange because of his experiment which was one of the first clinical trials ever; the recommendation was only a part of his book which took 4 pages out of 450 pages of recommendation like fresh air!
He actually thought that notably hard work, bad water, and the consumption of salt meat in a damp atmosphere which inhibited healthful perspiration and normal excretion were the reasons for scurvy! He did conclude that oranges and lemon were effective but that was a small conclusion in a large complex study! He of course did not have any clue about Vitamin C!
Apparently an extreme form of vitamin C deficiency, scurvy was first discussed by Hippocrates (460-370 c)! Yes the one whose oath (the modified one though and not the original!) We take when we become doctors though many may not follow it! I know some who did not even take it!
So Hippocrates diligently noted the condition’s manifold manifestations and deadly effects while remaining ignorant of the cause.!
The first recorded incidence of plant-matter rich in vitamin C being used to cure scurvy is probably the 1536 exploration of the St Lawrence Seaway by Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) who was on the point of losing his entire crew until the locals showed him how to brew up a preparation from the needles of the white cedar tree which was rich in vitamin c!
A similar intervention saved Sir Francis Drake’s (1540-96) crew during his circumnavigation when, in 1577, with his crew ravaged by scurvy, he put ashore in what is now Patagonia. Here again the natives saved the interlopers with a mash made from the bark of a local tree, also high in vitamin C!
Unfortunately for thousands of sailors and soldiers to come, the medical minds of both France and England with their characteristics high mindedness and feeling of superiority could not accept what natives and people who don’t know English or French already know for ages!
For 18th Century sailors, disease during long sea voyages was often more dangerous than enemy action.
One British expedition to raid Spanish holdings in the Pacific Ocean in the 1740s lost 1,300 of an original complement of 2,000 men to illness!
Many sailors suffered “a strange dejection of the spirits” and lay immobile, while others who “resolved to get out of their hammocks, have died before they could well reach the deck”.
The explorer Captain Cook recommended malt and sauerkraut, while others swore by “elixir of vitriol” (a dilute solution of sulphuric acid), blood-letting and applying a piece of turf to the patient’s mouth to counter the “bad qualities of the sea-air”!
Among the array of imaginative remedies one of the most effective was for those sailors who ate the ship’s rats were inadvertently protecting themselves – as the animal synthesizes its own vitamin C! Then again that may not be a universal appeal!
Even after it was suggested that Lemon and orange was effective, the efficacy of these juices was lost after some time since they have to be fresh! Moreover any storage and excess cooking would make the Vitamin C ineffective or inferior!
Only when Vitamin C was discovered was the cause found and the sea cruise has now become the grand and more comfortable option now which is a far cry from the rat eating days! Now that is a story! Story also was Malgudi days! And one of the best depictions of Swamy was by celebrity Manjunath Nayaker! He was a natural!
Now have some warm water and sleep peacefully that you do not have to eat rats!
SHubh Ratri!
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