3^8 THE HEMORRHAGIC DIATHESES 



fresh vegetables were found. He recovered on eating vegetables and juicy 

 fruits. We can rarely prove the post hoc, propter hoc with such certainty as 

 here, where the eating of fresh vegetables, particularly those belonging to 

 definite categories, is the best preventive, and in an existing scurvy is the best 

 remedy. 



The fact that certain vegetables, above all potatoes, have such a positive 

 action caused Garrod to note that potatoes in particular contain a great amount 

 of potassium carbonate. He then examined other foods to ascertain the 

 amount of potassium carbonate (potash) which they contained. According to 

 him they contain in one ounce (= about 30 grams) as follows: 



Potatoes, large (cooked), (1 gr. = about . 06 gram) 1 . 875 grains 



Potatoes, small (raw) 1.310 



Lime juice 853 grain 



Lemon juice °4" 



Oranges (unripe) 675 



Mutton (cooked) 6'^3 



Beef (raw) 599 || 



Meat, pickled (slightly salted) 573 



Peas 529 « 



Beef (salted) 394 " 



Onions 333 



Wheat bread v 358 



Cheese (Holland) 280 " 



Wheat flour (the best) 100 " 



Oatmeal 054 " 



Rice 010 " 



In consequence of these investigations Garrod supj)oses that a too slight 

 intake of acid vegetable potassium is the primal cause of scurvy, and cele- 

 brated authors, above all J. v. Liebig and Hirsch, coincide with him. 



The part that the potato plays in regard to scurvy may be recognized from 

 the fact of the decrease of the disease with the increase of potato culture. How 

 much the cultivation of vegetables was neglected in former times is shown by 

 Hirsch's statement that Katharine of Arragon, the wife of Henry VIII, in 

 ■ order to obtain a salad, was obliged to send her gardener to The ISTetherlands 

 for the material. 



But scurvy has not developed exclusively where there was a deficiency in 

 vegetables, and particularly those rich in potash. Hirsch relates a great 

 number of examples confirmatory of this. Indeed no one will now maintain 

 that other causes are no longer to be considered; on the contrary, the excep- 

 tions prove that a great predisposing importance may be attached to them. 

 We may perhaps suppose that in the above-mentioned exceptions sufficient 

 potassium was consumed in the food, but for some reason, perhaps as the 

 result of other deleterious causes, the organism was unable to assimilate it. 

 Bunge believes that a, cause may be found in the immoderate and extensive 

 use of salted meat, for the reason that in pickling the meat the salts and also 

 the potassium are extracted from it. 



A. E. Wright ^ had previously expressed the opinion that the disease d&- 



1 " On the PatlMJlogy and Therapeutics of Scurvy." Lancet, August 25, 1900. 



