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Updated: May 31, 2025
Really, if it had not been by currying favour with Ching Wang and bribing the steward, Pedro Carvalho, between whom there were continual rows occurring about the provisions, which it was the duty of the Portuguese to serve out, we must have starved ere reaching the Equator; for Captain Gillespie, in order to "turn an honest penny" and make his Dundee venture prove a success, persuaded the men forward and ourselves to give up a pound and a quarter of our meat ration for a pound tin of his marmalade, which he assured us would not only be more palatable with our biscuit, being such "a splendid substitute for butter," as the advertisements on the labels say, but would also act as an antiscorbutic to prevent the spread of scurvy amongst us it being, as he declared, better than lime-juice for this purpose!
The growth of the sorrel was from this time so quick, and the quantity of it so great on every part of the ground about the harbour, that we shortly after sent the men out every afternoon for an hour or two; in which time, besides the advantage of a healthy walk, they could, without difficulty, pick nearly a pound each of this valuable antiscorbutic, of which they were all extremely fond.
In the brief but fervid summer season, every inch of ground is covered with intensely green verdure, and even with flowers; and there is a great variety of wild plants, including abundance of Angelica, sorrel, and scurvy-grass, also lichens and mosses, all of antiscorbutic qualities.
One day, it was some specimens of the chicory tribe, the seeds of which by pressure yield an excellent oil; another, it was some common sorrel, whose antiscorbutic qualities were not to be despised; then, some of those precious tubers, which have at all times been cultivated in South America, potatoes, of which more than two hundred species are now known.
Sour Krout, of which we had a large quantity, is not only a wholesome vegetable food, but, in my judgment, highly antiscorbutic; and it spoils not by keeping. A pound of this was served to each man, when at sea, twice-a-week, or oftener, as was thought necessary. Portable Broth was another great article, of which we had a large supply.
But when the reader is told, that some of the necessary articles allowed to ships on a common passage to West Indies, were withheld from us; that portable soup, wheat, and pickled vegetables were not allowed; and that an inadequate quantity of essence of malt was the only antiscorbutic supplied, his surprise will redouble at the result of the voyage.
The evidence we have, so far as it goes, tends to show that the South American fauna always has been more archaic in type than the arctogeal fauna of the same chronological level. To loose generalizations, and to elaborate misinterpretations of paleontological records, the kind of work done by Mr. Haseman furnishes an invaluable antiscorbutic.
E. Is antiseptic, attenuant, aperient, and diuretic, and is said to open obstructions of the viscera and remoter glands, without heating or irritating the system. It has long been considered as the most effectual of all the antiscorbutic plants; and its sensible qualities are sufficiently powerful to confirm this opinion.
It is considered as a powerful diaphoretic, diuretic, and antiscorbutic. Woodville's Med. Bot. EUPATORIUM cannabinum. HEMP AGRIMONY, &c. Leaves. They are greatly recommended for strengthening the tone of the viscera, and as an aperient; and said to have excellent effects in the dropsy, jaundice, cachexies, and scorbutic disorders.
Considering, however, the serious loss we had sustained in the lemon-juice, the only effectual antiscorbutic on which we could depend during at least nine months of the year in these regions, as well as the effects likely to result from crowding nearly one hundred persons into the accommodation intended only for fifty-eight, whereby the difficulty of keeping the inhabited parts of the ship in a dry and wholesome state would have been so much increased, there certainly seemed some reason to apprehend that a second winter would not leave us in possession of the same excellent health which we now happily enjoyed, while it is possible that the difficulty and danger of either proceeding or returning might have been increased.
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