84 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



of an attack of the scourge of the miners, the disease 

 called scurvy. He says : 



" I was again dreaming of fortune and success, when 

 my hopes were blasted by an attack of a terrible 

 scourge that wrought destruction through the northern 

 mines during the winter of 1848. I allude to the land 

 scurvy. The exposed and unaccustomed life of two- 

 thirds of the miners, and their entire subsistence upon 

 salt meat, without any mixture of vegetable matter, 

 had produced this disease, which was experienced more 

 or less by one-half of the miners within my knowledge. 

 Its symptoms and progress may not be uninteresting. 

 It was first noticed in the 'Dry Diggings,' where, 

 about the middle of February, many persons were 

 rendered unable to walk by swellings of the lower 

 limbs, and severe pains in them. It was at first sup- 

 posed to be rheumatism, and was treated as such. 

 But it withstood the most powerful applications used 

 in that complaint, and was finally decided to be scurvy. 

 So long as the circumstances which caused it continued, 

 the disease made rapid progress. Many, who could 

 obtain no vegetables, or vegetable acids, lingered out 

 a miserable existence and died, — while others, fortu- 

 nate enough to reach the settlements, where potatoes 

 and acids could be procured, recovered. I noticed its 

 first attack upon myself by swelling and bleeding of 

 the gums, which was followed by a swelling of both 

 legs below the knee, which rendered me unable to 

 walk ; and for three weeks I was laid up in my tent, 

 obliged to feed upon the very articles that had caused 

 the disease, and growing daily weaker, -without any 

 reasonable prospect of relief. There were, at that 

 time, about eight hundred persons at work on the river, 

 and hoping to get some medicine, I despatched one of 



