SCURVY : A DISEASE DUE TO ABSENCE 

 ' OF VITAMINE 



It is unnecessary under the circumstances of the 

 present lecture for more than a brief mention to 

 be made of the fact that modern research in dietetics 

 has established the existence of no less than three 

 indispensable accessory substances, the presence of 

 which in the diet is essential for the complete 

 development of the higher animals, and the absence 

 of which leads to cessation of growth, disease and 

 death. Although, however, the ideas of accessory 

 food factors or vitamines and of deficiency diseases 

 due to the absence of these from the diet are 

 essentially modern, and have indeed been developed 

 within the last decade, scurvy, one of the best 

 defined deficiency diseases, was long ago recognised 

 as being due to a defective diet. Among a seagoing 

 people like the English, scurvy — the scurvy, as it 

 was always termed — was but too familiar, and a 

 glance through the history of the extensive ex- 

 plorations of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies teaches us what a dread and terrible scourge 

 scurvy was at that time. 



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