Non-fiction audiobook review: Scurvy, by Stephen R. Bown

This one comes out of the "random audiobooks on historical/science/nature topics" file. 

 

 Title: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner,and an Gentleman Solve the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail

Author: Stephen R. Bown

Publisher: Phoenix Books, Inc., 2007, 8 hours. Original hardback published 2003 by Viking, 256 pages.

Source: Library

Publisher's Blurb (from Overdrive):
A lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of 18th century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of military successes, yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. Stephen Bown, in this engaging and often gripping book, searches back to the earliest recorded appearance of scurvy in the 16th century, to the 18th century, when the disease was at its gum-shred, bone-snapping worst, to the early 19th century, when the preventative was finally put into service. Bown introduces us, among others, to James Lind, navy surgeon and medical detective, whose research on the disease spawned the implementation of the cure; Captain James Cook, who successfully avoided scurvy on his epic voyages; and Gilbert Blane, whose social status and charisma won over the British Navy and saved England. Scurvy is a medical detective story for the ages, a fascinating and often maddening examination of how a preventative for scurvy, the "scourge of the seas", was found, ignored, and finally implemented to the great benefit of all seafaring nations. The inability to puzzle out the cause of and prevention of scurvy slowed down history, keeping ships close to home and dooming those ships that ventured too far.

 

My Review:
This was fascinating and frustrating stuff--and nothing to listen to at meal times! The frustration came from hearing about the ways in which accepted medical thinking kept obscuring the cure for scurvy, which appears to have been found and lost more than once over the course of a couple of centuries. Medical sorts back in the 18th and 19th Centuries don't seem to have been big on the scientific method, and far too much depended on the social standing of the doctor, rather than his knowledge. The idea of controlled experiments seems to have been out there, but not much respected.

The detailed medical information and discussions of how and why the cure was so long delayed is nicely interlaced with dramatic tales of ships at sea, and the effects of scurvy on  their trajectories. I really appreciated the way the author considered the impacts of the disease--and the cure--on the progress of history. Interesting to consider that if the cure had been found earlier, the US might still be a British colony, or that with different timing, England might have lost a key battle with France. 

The narrator did a good, but  not 100% transparent, job. I was occasionally aware of odd pauses, and British pronunciations (I assume) of some words jarred me, but overall it was easy to listen to.

My Recommendation:
Great stuff for fans of Horatio Hornblower and his ilk! Really puts those tales of 18th and 19th century seafaring into perspective.

FTC Disclosure: I checked Scurvy out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2024
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