Summary Of Scurvy: How A Surgeon, By Stephen R Brown

Critically acclaimed author Stephen R. Brown in his work titled “Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman solved the greatest medical mystery of the age of sail.” Brown offers his readers a factual and historically accurate account of life at sea during the age of sail; however, one could easily mistake parts of this book for a work of fiction. Brown achieves this rare balance by employing techniques normally reserved for a work of fiction. By paying particular attention to the underlying motivations, actions, and choices made by individuals coupled with robust storytelling, Brown creates not only a narrative for the book but also a biographical account as well. Brown achieves this while maintaining both a factual and historically accurate account of life as an 18th century seaman. For the 18th century seaman prolonged time at sea oftentimes meant a substantial risk of suffering from scurvy. Brown notes that “scurvy is a hideous
While informing, the reader of the horrors of scurvy Brown also weaves the account of a 16th century French mariners who through the assistance of native peoples were about to drink a draft produced from boiling the branch’s of a “annedda tree” restored their ravaged crew. This anecdotal evidence juxtaposed against the medical reasoning of the most learned 18th century elites to provide the reader the sense that their was a willful neglect concerning the accounts that life-saving properties were found in various plants and fruits. Chapter three devotes a great deal of text to the telling of the story of Commodore George Anson who led a squadron of ships on a four-year voyage to attack the Spanish holdings. However, the reader learns that most of Anson’s crew succumbed to scurvy. Anson lost so many of his sailors that he was only able to crew just one of the five warships that departed England in