Scurvy Essay

2361 Words10 Pages
Scurvy is a disease caused by a diet that lacks vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid). The name scurvy comes from the Latin word scorbutus. The disease has been known about since ancient Greek and Egyptian times. Scurvy commonly is associated with sailors in the 16th to 18th centuries. Many sailors would suffer and die because they went on long voyages without enough vitamin C. With this said, modern cases of scurvy are extremely rare Though scurvy is a very rare disease, it still occurs in some patients. Usually elderly, alcoholics, or those that live on a diet devoid of fresh fruits and vegetables. The primary cause of scurvy is insufficient intake of vitamin C. This may be due to ignorance, famine, restrictive diets (due to allergies, food fads, etc.), or difficulty orally ingesting foods. Historically, scurvy was the result of long sea voyages where sailors did not bring along enough foods with vitamin C. Scurvy symptoms may begin with appetite loss, poor weight gain, diarrhea, rapid breathing, fever, irritability, tenderness and discomfort in legs, swelling over long bones, bleeding (hemorrhaging), and feelings of paralysis. As the disease progresses, a scurvy victim may have bleeding of gums, loosened teeth, petechial hemorrhage of the skin and mucous membranes, bleeding in the eye, proptopsis of the eyeball (protruding eye), constochondral beading (beading of the cartilage between joints), hyperkeratosis (a skin disorder), corkscrew hair, and sicca syndrome (an autoimmune disease affecting connecting tissue). Sometimes, radiological procedures are ordered for diagnostic purposes and to see what damage scurvy has already done. Notable human dietary studies of experimentally induced scurvy have been conducted on conscientious objectors during WW II in Britain, and on Iowa state prisoner "volunteers" in the late 1960s. These studies both found that
Open Document