Cocktail Party Physics: NEW VOICES: georgie boy

Dr. Cheadle has never heard of vitamins. Their discovery is decades in the future. But he understands that diet is the issue here, although many colleagues disagree. Dr. Cheadle argues in his 1878 paper against the various other theories about scurvy, including that it is caused by humid and/or cold climates, excess salt in the diet, lack of exercise, and ptomaine poisoning. “There is, however, an invariable factor, without the presence of which all other casual and irregular factors are powerless to set up the disease. This essential factor, it has been proved over and over again, is the absence of certain elements in food. If the body is deprived of these elements, [scurvy] is produced. What these elements are has not yet been absolutely settled with scientific precision, but we know positively that they exist in fresh vegetables, in lime-juice, in milk, and in less considerable degree, perhaps, in some other fresh animal foods.”