An old Alaska cure for scurvy: Was the medicine worse than the disease?

A part of a seamless weekly collection on native historical past by native historian David Reamer. Have a query about Anchorage historical past or an concept for a future article? Go to the shape on the backside of this story.

The gold rushes of the late Nineteenth and early twentieth century conjure photographs of prospectors crouched in streams with their gold pans, fortune hunters wielding pickaxes, dancehall ladies mining the miners, and, in comparatively uncommon situations, gold nuggets and immeasurable wealth. No less than these are a few of the common conceptions of the gold rushes, particularly the Klondike gold rush. The fact was far grittier. Mining camps and boomtowns had been cesspools rife with cholera, meningitis, typhoid fever, venereal ailments and scurvy, amongst many different maladies.

As these had been the olden days, each old-timer had a most popular people treatment assured to treatment what ailed you. Spruce bark tea, pickles and potatoes had been among the many most typical solutions for scurvy, to various levels of success. Billie Moore, who performed a big position within the growth of Skagway, provided a singular remedy for scurvy. However his steered treatment raises a better query. Can the medication be worse than the illness? On this case, it is determined by how you’re feeling about lice.

Scurvy is a illness brought on by a scarcity of vitamin C, sometimes manifesting in those that go a month or extra with a eating regimen missing in fruit and veggies. Signs embrace irritability, fatigue, joint and limb ache, bleeding gums, pores and skin sores, and susceptibility to bruising. If left unchecked, scurvy results in tooth falling out, extreme ache and dying.

For hundreds of years, some docs and observers had linked a scarcity of fruit consumption to the onset of scurvy, however the connection was not confirmed till 1932. Earlier than the Nineteen Thirties, nobody knew of vitamin C, and the worth of fruit as a remedy for scurvy was beforehand extensively contested.

Most readers may affiliate scurvy with sailors. Scurvy was certainly widespread amongst troopers and sailors, populations that tended to outlive on less complicated rations than they might have at dwelling. In the course of the 18th century, extra British troopers died from scurvy than in battle. Pity the poor pirates who spent much less time in ports of name given the felony facet of their occupation and thus had much less entry to the vitamins wanted to stave off scurvy.

But, scurvy was additionally endemic throughout gold rushes, from California within the mid-Nineteenth century to Alaska rushes many years later. Prospectors tended to have severely restricted diets on account of excessive meals prices in distant mining boomtowns, the shorter shelf lifetime of vitamin C-rich choices, and the overriding deal with fortune looking. Mining was labor intensive and time consuming. So, most prospectors saved money and time with a easy eating regimen of simply ready staples like bacon, beans, espresso and flour, none of which contained ample vitamin C.

One physician within the Yukon Territory through the Klondike gold rush acknowledged, “gold rushers tended to develop into indolent and careless, solely consuming these issues that are most simply cooked or ready. In the course of the busy time … they work exhausting and for lengthy hours, sparing little time for consuming and far much less for cooking.” The physician was much less empathetic to miners’ complaints, maybe because of the variety of circumstances.

Because the circumstances of scurvy superior within the distant boomtowns and mining camps, the signs turned disturbingly seen, which is why some referred to as the illness “black leg.” One other observer watched a younger prospector attempt to work via the ache of his situation: “Now the discoverer labored like a person possessed. He was already affected by scurvy introduced on by meager rations and overstrain, however he had not time to contemplate remedy … One he labored, his legs turning black and scabrous, his declare nonetheless unsurveyed and unregistered, he headed downhill for Grand Forks to get some uncooked potatoes to arrest his illness.”

Not that the prospectors might have recognized why they labored, however potatoes are an inexpensive supply of vitamin C. Many greens, not to mention fruits, comprise extra vitamin C than potatoes, together with turnips, broccoli, and cabbage. Nonetheless, potatoes had been often extra obtainable, if nonetheless pricey. Resulting from a mix of shortages and avaricious sellers, many prospectors had been compelled to commerce gold for potatoes. To be truthful, they paid for a lot of issues with gold. In a single incident, a Klondike gold rush miner with scurvy refused his mates’ recommendation to eat some uncooked potatoes. The man as an alternative went to a Dawson hospital, the place he was fed solely uncooked potatoes and charged $10 a day for the privilege.

Newcomers suffered probably the most. The Dawson Day by day Information provided the non-public recollection of a prospector who got here down with scurvy throughout his first northern winter. “My inventory of grub turned so low and so poor in selection that the scurvy seized on me. If ever a person was in a frightful situation I used to be. My physique and limbs turned black, my hair fell out, and I might have pulled any of my tooth from my mouth with my fingers with scarcely any effort. Sores lined my physique like Job in his nice affliction. Ache crammed and racked me from head to foot.”

William “Billie” Moore (1822-1902) was a former steamboat captain who, in 1887, established a homestead at what’s now Skagway. He believed the positioning was an funding, that it might develop into a gateway to goldfields in northwestern Canada, which he additionally thought could be found in brief order. Although he needed to wait a couple of years, he was confirmed proper.

On July 17, 1897, the SS Portland landed at Seattle with a “ton of gold” and information of the Klondike gold strikes. From there started the Klondike gold rush. The ship’s golden cargo was loaded in Skagway at a wharf constructed by Moore.

Like many settler Alaskans, Moore struggled to fend off what he referred to as the “dread illness of scurvy, which is usually prevalent within the camps.” He believed that “stagnant blood is the reason for scurvy,” a standard false impression of the time.

In 1947, Will H. Chase revealed “Reminiscences of Captain Billie Moore,” which reworked a collection of interviews right into a unified biography. Within the e-book, Moore recounted the sage recommendation of an skilled sourdough concerning scurvy. The treatment didn’t embrace potatoes, lemons, limes, cabbage, spruce tea, pickles or any edible cure-all. As an alternative, he thought the answer for scurvy was train.

Per the e-book, “(I) purchased me two full grown, wholesome lice, one male and one feminine. I solely paid a bit of chewing tobacco for them, and I let you know boys, that after I had turned them free on my undershirt, I discovered that I didn’t really feel as sleepy as I did earlier than. After they’d raised a small household, I discovered myself not mendacity down fairly a lot, as I did earlier than.”

The narrative continues, “I do know for a certainty that they drew blood from me, and the blood runs to the spot the place they’re busy, so naturally it follows that you’ve a greater circulation. Then if you’re profitable in maintaining a good-sized household, say about sixteen or twenty, and get them situated in numerous spots, they certainly will make the blood circulate.”

The anecdote is pitched in such a means that it additionally seems to symbolize Moore’s opinion on scurvy cures. And sure, the suggestion appears clearly tongue-in-cheek and ludicrous. But, there have been skilled Alaskans who swore it was the reality. Nonetheless, it’s price contemplating. Which might you relatively endure a bout of scurvy or a lice infestation? Is the medication worse than the illness?

Key sources:

Carpenter, Kenneth J. “The Discovery of Vitamin C.” Annals of Diet and Metabolism 61, no. 3 (2012): 259-164.

Chase, Will H. “Reminiscences of Captain Billie Moore.” Kansas Metropolis, MO: Burton Publishing Firm, 1947.

Fairbanks, Lulu M. “Ton of Gold Set World on Hearth.” Fairbanks Day by day Information-Miner, July 22, 1964, 13C.

Highet, Megan J. “Gold Fever: Dying and Illness In the course of the Klondike Gold Rush, 1898-1904.” Grasp’s thesis, College of Manitoba, 2008.

Newman, Sara. “Dashing to the Grave” Nationwide Park Service, N.D.,