1783-1784

Thomas Trotter, Edinburgh physician aboard British slave ship Brookes, observes scurvy among ca. 300 of 500 enslaved Africans in struggling to breathe in bottom of ship, reaffirms James Lind’s observations of 1740s on ability of citrus fruit (here, the sucking of limes and ripe guavas) to cure and prevent scurvy  new ideas about scurvy in his Observations on Scurvy (1786). He argued that scurvy resulted from poor nutrition, not racial identity, focusing on the slave trade itself not individual characteristics, aligning his theory with 18th c. pneumatic chemistry (e.g., how crowded environments changed air quality), arguing that acidic fruits cured scurvy because they contained “vital air” (i.e., oxygen). Trotter’s analysis of both scurvy and effects of lack of air “provides an important case study in the development of an epidemiological approach to disease” (Downs, ch 1).