{"id":19339,"date":"2025-06-13T16:10:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T16:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/?p=19339"},"modified":"2025-06-13T16:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T16:10:07","slug":"before-a-cure-for-scurvy-was-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/before-a-cure-for-scurvy-was-discovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Before a cure for scurvy was discovered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Before a cure for scurvy was discovered, British ship owners expected that up to <strong>__<\/strong> of the ship crew would die on long sea voyages. Group of answer choices 10% 25% 50% 75%<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color\"><strong>The correct answer and explanation is:<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The correct answer is: <strong>50%<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Explanation (Approximately 300 words):<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the cure for <strong>scurvy<\/strong> was discovered in the 18th century, <strong>British ship owners<\/strong> and naval authorities <strong>expected that up to 50%<\/strong> of a ship&#8217;s crew could <strong>die on long sea voyages<\/strong> due to the disease. Scurvy is caused by a <strong>deficiency of vitamin C (ascorbic acid)<\/strong>, which is essential for the synthesis of collagen in humans. Without sufficient vitamin C, sailors developed symptoms such as fatigue, swollen gums, bleeding, and eventually death if untreated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During long ocean voyages, especially those lasting <strong>several months<\/strong>, sailors had <strong>no access to fresh fruits or vegetables<\/strong>, the primary sources of vitamin C. Their diets mainly consisted of salted meats, hardtack, and dried legumes\u2014foods that do not contain vitamin C. As a result, scurvy became a <strong>major cause of mortality<\/strong> among seafarers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The British Navy eventually addressed the problem in the <strong>mid-1700s<\/strong>, thanks largely to the work of <strong>Dr. James Lind<\/strong>, who conducted one of the first clinical trials in 1747. He demonstrated that sailors given <strong>citrus fruits<\/strong> (lemons and oranges) recovered from scurvy, while those on other treatments did not. By the end of the 18th century, the Royal Navy adopted the practice of issuing <strong>lemon juice<\/strong> to sailors, and later <strong>lime juice<\/strong> (earning British sailors the nickname &#8220;limeys&#8221;). This dramatically reduced scurvy-related deaths and gave the British Navy a powerful advantage during the Age of Sail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, historically, ship owners did indeed expect <strong>up to 50%<\/strong> of their crew to perish on long voyages\u2014a grim reality until the nutritional cause of scurvy was understood and addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2705 <strong>Correct answer: 50%<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before a cure for scurvy was discovered, British ship owners expected that up to __ of the ship crew would die on long sea voyages. Group of answer choices 10% 25% 50% 75% The correct answer and explanation is: The correct answer is: 50% Explanation (Approximately 300 words): Before the cure for scurvy was discovered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quiz-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19340,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions\/19340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}