1876 SLEDGE DIETARY. 259 



On the other hand, parties commanded by Sir 

 James Eoss, Allen Young, Mr. Kennedy, and Mons. 

 Bellot suffered from scurvy. 



Sir James Eoss, starting from Port Leopold in 1849 

 on the 15th of May, when the weather was warm, was 

 able to issue a daily ration of one ounce of lime-juice 

 to his sledge crews ; but nevertheless, at the end of 

 thirty-seven days, his men returned to their ships as 

 completely prostrated by what is said to have been 

 debility as the sledge crews of the ' Alert ' and * Dis- 

 covery ' were from scurvy. 



When I had to arrange a diet scale for a crew of 

 healthy men, most of whom had the previous autumn 

 performed successful journeys of twenty days' duration 

 without any sign of disease, I based my arrange- 

 ments on those which had proved efficient in the nume- 

 rous previous sledge journeys in the Arctic regions. 

 A copy of the official reports of these journeys had 

 been supplied for my information by the Admiralty ; 

 at the same time was forwarded a memorandum of 

 recommendations and suggestions drawn up by the 

 Medical Director-General, one paragraph of which 

 recommended the use of lime-juice during sledge 

 journeys ; but inasmuch as the few sledge parties 

 which had been supplied with lime-juice during the 

 months of April and early May — viz. those of Sir 

 Horatio Austin in 1852 and of Sir Edward Belcher in 

 1854 — had utterly failed to use it as a ration during 

 the cold weather, owing to its rock-like condition when 

 frozen ; and moreover, as every one of the many sledge 

 crews who had not been so supplied had, after per- 

 forming journeys, some of them 100 days in duration, 



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