The
sailors and passengers who jumped ship at the Bay of San
Francisco to answer the call of gold in the early days of
the 1849 California Gold Rush more than likely thought their
worries of vitamin C deficiencies from lack of fresh fruit
and vegetables were over. The dreaded scourge that plagued
sea travelers had been around for thousands of years causing
debilitating illness and ultimate death on long voyages
where the primary foodstuffs available were
cured and salted meats and dried grains.
For
several centuries the simple cure had been recognized,
although not completely understood. Surely, however, in a
port described by early Spanish explorers as lined with
green trees, freshwater streams, and very good grass covered
soil, lack of L-ascorbic acid would not be a concern.
In the
early 18th century, a simple housewife sat down and wrote a
100 page book of household remedies. Nearly 40 years before
British naval surgeon James Lind experimented with
antiscorbutic diet treatments consisting of two oranges and
one lemon daily for six days, Mrs. Ebot Mitchel came up
with a cure for scurvy, which included extracts from plants,
orange juice, white wine or beer. It is unknown how many
people benefited from Mrs. Mitchel’s remedy, but James
Lind’s was taken a bit more seriously. Unfortunately for
long term sailors,
the landlubber medical establishment did not condone the
benefits of citrus fruits and dismissed Lind’s evidence as
unproven and anecdotal.
By 1794 two thirds of an ounce of lemon juice was served in
a daily grog to crew members of the Suffolk that
were headed for a non-stop ocean voyage to India. The
twenty-three week journey led by Rear Admiral Alan Gardner,
suffered no outbreak of scurvy, and lemon juice was soon in
wide-demanded. It wasn’t until after 1800, however, that
the British Navy insisted on sufficient supplies of citrus
juice to prevent the disease.
The world appeared to forget the benefits of vitamin C and
physicians still sought to prove it’s affects even through
the mid 1930’s. Scurvy followed the trans-continental
explorers of the United States, and even the military would
suffer. The Long Expedition of 1819-1820 came through the
Rocky Mountains with three hundred cases of scurvy, and one
hundred deaths. Botanist, geologist, and surgeon, Dr. Edwin
James, was the company’s physician, but did not know how to
prevent or cure those who succumbed to the disease.
His observations of unscathed hunters who had been away from
camp for some time, allowed him to come to the conclusion
that the diet of green herbs and wild garlic they ate in the
woods along the hunting trail, kept them healthy. In 1834,
one of the cooks from the Long Expedition remembered this,
and saved the life of Maximilian, Prince of Wied, who came
down with scurvy during a stay at Fort Clark. Even as late
as 1860, twenty-five army men under Captain John Mullan’s
command, began showing signs of hemorrhages around skin hair
follicles, and other common symptoms. The Captain’s brother,
James, an army surgeon, was appointed to the company’s
health, and relied on an old fashioned folk remedy of fresh
vegetables and vinegar to prevent disease progression and
death.
In 1850, Dr. I. S. P. Lord wrote “scurvy is as common as
damaged flour, and yet we seem to have pure air, soft
crystal water, wholesome food, cooked well and regularly and
comfortable sleep.” Unfortunately, Argonauts and immigrants
coming to California by land and sea subsisted on diets of
beans, salt pork, boiled beef, pancakes and little
vegetables, and continued along similar diets once they
reached their destinations. The disease was often dubbed
“The Explorer’s Disease”, rivaling cholera as the number one
frontier killer.
Military outposts and wagon trains all suffered alike due to
inadequate supplies and lack of education on natural
vegetation containing vitamin C, where no other fresh fruit
and vegetables were readily available.
Cost to freight scurvy preventing foods to struggling
frontier town or mining camps made it prohibitive for the
average person. In the mining camps in particular, the
common disease of gold fever took precedence over anything
else and preventive eating measures were not even considered
even if it was as simple as enjoying a native grown herb or
bulb full of “C” in the very ground they trampled over in
their search for precious ore.
The mountain men and Native Americans should have served as
example for the American pioneers suffering from symptoms of
bleeding gums, loose teeth, and large areas of hemorrhaging
skin. One man scolded, “Red muscle meat will do you in the
settlements, maybe so where you can get plenty of green
vegetables. But on the prairie you will have the cow’s
insides for choice marrow, lights, heart and tongue, warm
liver spiced with gall, and best of all guts-plain guts-and
raw at that!”
Organ meats contained plenty of the missing vitamin needed
in the average pioneer's diet, but the thought of partaking,
would have turned many a stomach, even if they did believe
in what the seasoned mountain man told them. The Native
American diet of herbaceous plants, an uncooked liver, fat,
and bile, as well as undigested vegetable contents of the
first stomach of the buffalo, were rich in C, but also
unattractive to the average pioneer who observed their
practices.
Edward Gould Buffom was among those who came to the
California country and contracted the disease. He recorded
not only that at least half the miners were down with
scurvy, he was experiencing “swelling and bleeding of the
gums, followed by a swelling of both legs below the knee,
which rendered me unable to walk. For three weeks I was
obliged to feed upon the very articles that had caused the
disease and growing daily weaker, enduring the most intense
suffering from pain in my limbs which were now becoming more
swollen and turning black.”
Fortunately for Buffom, a friend had the sense to search for
wild beans and make a decoction of bark from the spruce
tree. Buffom cheated death. Teas were common cures of the
day for many diseases, and for scurvy, teas of sassafras
spruce leaves, acidulous drinks, stewed fruits and pickles
were often concocted.
One mining camp in the golden hills of California took
advantage of a large outbreak of scurvy by tackling the
problem of both disease and government management at the
same time. The scurvy crisis hit primarily the Mexican and
Chilean population of Sonora during the rainy season of 1849
and 1850 due to the usual culprit of salt meat and no
vegetables or fruit.
A town hospital was proposed to deal with the problem. By
November 7, 1849, following the selection of a mayor, and a
council of five American and two Frenchmen, a hospital was
quickly established and maintained successfully, at least
until the ravages of scurvy were checked.
Expenses were exorbitant for the hospital, with five dollar
lime-juice, one dollar potatoes and canned fruits and other
anti-scorbutics at twenty-fold the usual prices. Even the
hospital servants earned eight dollars a day. The mayor was
dedicated to the cause and contributed his official fees to
hospital uses, and Sonoran citizens generously contributed.
As the scurvy was conquered and hospital needs subsided,
town fees went to vacant lots and property surveys, quickly
turning the mining camp to a full fledged town.
Historian Anthony J. Lorenz touted that at least 20,000 men
died of scurvy during the California rush for gold. Nearly
half of those deaths were in the first winters of 1848 and
1849 when it all began. The numbers exceeded the deaths for
cholera. The Chinese were not among the great numbers who
came down with scurvy, with their rich diet of vegetables
they grew themselves. Herbal treatments and acupuncture may
have attributed to their health as well.
As vegetable and citrus farming were introduced, and
vegetables and fruits more became more readily available,
scurvy was still so dreaded, that these commodities
commanded high prices which were willingly paid.
As miners fell victim to scurvy, some camps were known to
bury victims in the ground up to their necks. The belief was
that by immersing themselves in the land, they could
maximize its effects. Those who remained unburied, stood
guard to “keep off grizzlies and coyotes” Whether the
procedure worked or not, was never recorded. After 1850,
however, scurvy epidemics were virtually unheard of.
Bibliography
Bleed Blister and Purge, A history of Medicine on the
American Frontier
by
Volney Steele, M.D.
Mountain Press Publishing, 2005
Mining Camps, A Study In American Frontier Government
by
Charles Howard Shinn
Harper
Torch Books, 1965
No One Ailing Except A Physician: Medicine in the Mining
West, 1848-1919
by
Duane A. Smith & Donald C. Brown
University Press of Colorado, 2001