Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail [Paperback]

Stephen Bown (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (2004)
• ASIN: B000OTKHS2
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I am an award-winning author of historical non-fiction with seven books to my credit (and an eighth book almost completed). My book Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail was an international critical success and was selected as one of the Globe and Mail's Top 100 books of 2004. A Most Damnable Invention: Dynamite, Nitrates and the Making of the Modern World, was included in the Scientific American Book Club, the History Book Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club as well as being shortlisted for two awards. My next book, Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver, was shortlisted for the Canadian Authors' Association's Lela Common Award for Canadian History and won the 2009 B.C. Book Prize Booksellers' Choice Award. The book received excellent reviews and the one star rating here is mystifying and also inaccurate and misleading (all the four and five star customer reviews appear on amazon.ca).

After the publication of Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, I received a phone call from The Right Honourable Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada, telling me how much he enjoyed the book. He stayed up all night reading it, but he said the lost sleep was worth it.

My latest book is 1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half. It was released in August 2011 in Canada and will be released in February 2012 in the United States.

1494 tells the true story involving a corrupt pope - Rodrigo Borgia, the patriarch of the family fictionalized in the hit Showtime series The Borgias - in an explosive feud between monarchs, clergy and explorers that split the globe between Spain and Portugal and made the world's oceans a battleground.

My author facebook page is www.facebook.com/srbown on which I post interesting historical tidbits related to my writing several times per week. I also have an author website which has a complete list of reviews: www.stephenrbown.net

I live in a small town in the Rocky Mountains with my wife Nicky and two children. When I'm not writing I'm usually reading, mountain biking, hiking and camping in the summer, and downhill and cross country skiing in the winter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an excellent book, May 9, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail (Hardcover)

This is a well-written, entertaining book. I read it mostly due to my interest in sea-faring and the "age of sail," as the author terms it. However, I found myself enjoying it just as much for the story it tells about the gradual discovery of a cure for a disease that crippled sea-faring nations for centuries. Particularly enlightening is the story of the bureacracy, the British Admiralty, that stubbornly ignored the potential cure, even as it suffered tremendous losses for its ignorance, and how vital privilege and influence is in challenging and changing such an establishment. The book's only minor flaw is that it focuses primarily on one country, Britain, without elaborating on how or why France or Spain failed to find a cause and a cure. I would recommend it highly.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as deep as it could have been., March 7, 2004

By 

Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail (Hardcover)

This book tackles a fascinating subject; scurvy which killed 100,000s of sailors. Many passages illuminate the causes and affects of this terrible disease, which quite simply results from a lack of vitamin C and causes the bond of the body to weaken, causing terrible bleeding in the gums and from the skin. The cure for scurvy was not understood for 100s of years and this book takes the reader on a quick stroll through this history. Why did Eskimoes, who ate no vegetables, not suffer scurvy? This question was posed by the English whose aptitude for eating limes gave them the nickname `limies' since limes appeared to counteract scurvy. Why did preserved meat not work? Why did cooked meat or limes not work? These questions were eventually answered by the man who found out the truth behind the disease. This is the books central theme and actually its main detraction. Since the book focuses on the men, reminiscent of the recent book on the OED, it detracts slightly from the overall history of scurvy. Nevertheless this is a welcomed addition on the subject, and a fascinating read.

Seth J. Frantzman

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beating Scurvy, November 26, 2007

By 

Zecon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail (Paperback)

I've always been fascinated by the age of sail, particularly the period during the Napoleonic Wars. An incredible test of nations and the men at sea occurred during that war. Consequently I have enjoyed reading numerous fictional accounts of that war from authors such as Patrick O'Brien, Dudley Pope, and C.S. Forester. What I never fully grasped were all the reasons why the Brits were superior to the French and Spanish navies. Those authors always talked up the better training and discipline as the reason. They also pointed to the leadership purges of the French navy that occurred during the revolution. However, I intuitively recognized that there was something more to the story. The cure for scurvy was that something more. And the Brits got there first.

Brown does a fantastic job of outlining the history of scurvy and the quest for a cure in a very interesting and readable fashion. Outlining the course of scurvy at sea during the voyages of Anson and Cook, he is able to put a cost on scurvy. He details how rigid social structures prevented remedies from being taken seriously and reluctance by the Admiralty to invest in its men in terms of hygiene and diet permitted this affliction to rage for much longer than it should have. It is shocking to read how the medical professionals of the day diagnosed patients despite the evidence. When it appears that they are on the very verge of a cure, they seem to loose touch with logic and regress to useless remedies.

Brown tells the story of scurvy very well.