Curing Scurvy – how to cure scurvy

Today, only “primates” and guinea pigs get scurvy since their bodies cannot process a natural vitamin so needed to prevent it. Rarely, if ever, do you hear of a human today coming down with scurvy, yet in the heyday of shipping on the open seas (the 17th-19th centuries) it is commonly said that a million people died of the disease. Stephen R. Brown, who literally wrote the book on “Scurvy,” described the vicious ailment. He says, “Scurvy is a hideous and frightful affliction by which the body’s connective tissue degenerates, resulting in bleeding gums, wobbly teeth, rot-reeking breath, anemic lethargy, physical weakness, the opening of old wounds, and the separating of once healed broken bones. Untreated, it leads to a slow, agonizing, and inevitable death.” Though Hippocrates, who was alive the same time as the prophets Zechariah and Malachi, knew about scurvy, it was not until the early 1800s that steps were taken to eliminate the scourge of scurvy.

The most amazing thing is that the cure for scurvy was suggested almost 300 years before people began to believe in and utilize it. Such well-known and highly-regarded people as Portuguese explorers Pedro Cabral (1510) and Vasco da Gama (1510s), French explorer Jacques Cartier ( 1535), British surgeon James Lind (1753), British sea captain James Cook (1776), and many others suggested that citrus fruits and even to a lesser degree green vegetables could prevent scurvy. Sometimes, natives in lands where these explorers went knew these facts. Other times, the cure was found in a desperate means of guesswork or the process of elimination. Yet, the results, when Vitamin C was given to sailors, was dramatic and seemingly miraculous.

In fact, it was too obvious and too easy. Many doubted the cure because it just could not be that simple. It had to be something more hidden, complex, or nefarious. But, finally, in the 19th century, after a million sailors had succumbed to it, did the cure “catch on” with people. How tragic!

Yet, for 2,000 years, people have done the same thing with baptism with infinitely more tragic results. The Bible makes abundantly clear the role baptism plays in curing man’s greatest problem (Acts 2:38; 8:35-39; 22:16; Romans 6:1-6; Galatians 3:27; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21). However, the vast majority of the religious world rejects that baptism is essential to salvation. Some reason that it cannot be that simple, that immersing someone in water cannot be so important to God and His plan for saving us. So, they refuse to be baptized. Many religious people, Christ-believing people just will not be baptized to have their sins washed away. The Lord has spelled out the cure. We must place greater faith in God’s wisdom than man’s wisdom! The cure is evident and simple, but we still must submit to it.

Neal Pollard

Vitamin Survey – take this “vitamin survey”:

[polldaddy poll=2913781]

Leave a Reply