[7] Young. Lectures on Nat. Phil. ii. 627. See also Phil. Trans. 1801–2.
[8] Captain Basil Hall, R. N.
[9] We must caution our readers who would assure themselves of it by trial, that it is an experiment of some delicacy, and not to be made without several precautions to ensure success. For these we must refer to our original authority (Fresnel. Mémoire sur la Diffraction de la Lumiere, p. 124.); and the principles on which they depend will of course be detailed in that volume of the Cabinet Cyclopædia which is devoted to the subject of Light.
[10] Little reels used in cotton mills to twist the thread.
[11] Such a block would weigh between four and five hundred thousand pounds. See Dr. Kennedy’s “Account of the Erection of a Granite Obelisk of a Single Stone about Seventy Feet high, at Seringapatam.”—Ed. Phil. Trans. vol. ix, p. 312.
[12] Dr. Coindet of Geneva.
[13] Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, &c. &c. under the Command of Commodore George Anson, in 1740–1744, by Pascoe Thomas, Lond. 1745, So tremendous were the ravages of scurvy, that, in the year 1726, admiral Hosier sailed with seven ships of the line to the West Indies, and buried his ships’ companies twice, and died himself in consequence of a broken heart. Dr. Johnson, in the year 1778, could describe a sea-life in such terms as these:—“As to the sailor, when you look down from the quarter deck to the space below, you see the utmost extremity of human misery, such crowding, such filth, such stench!”—“A ship is a prison with the chance of being drowned—it is worse—worse in every respect—worse room, worse air, worse food—worse company!” Smollet, who had personal experience of the horrors of a seafaring life in those days, gives a lively picture of them in his Roderick Random.
[14] Lemon juice was known to be a remedy for scurvy far superior to all others 200 years ago, as appears by the writings of Woodall. His work is entitled “The Surgeon’s Mate, or Military and Domestic Medicine. By John Woodall, Master in Surgery London, 1636,” p. 165. In 1600, Commodore Lancaster sailed from England with three other ships for the Cape of Good Hope, on the 2d of April, and arrived in Saldanha Bay on the 1st of August, the commodore’s own ship being in perfect health, from the administration of three table-spoonsfull of lemon juice every morning to each of his men, whereas the other ships were so sickly as to be unmanageable for want of hands, and the commander was obliged to send men on board to take in their sails and hoist out their boats. (Purchas’s Pilgrim, vol. i. p. 149.) A Fellow of the college, and an eminent practitioner, in 1753 published a tract on sea scurvy, in which he adverts to the superior virtue of this medicine; and Mr. A. Baird, surgeon of the Hector sloop of war, states, that from what he had seen of its effects on board of that ship, he “thinks he shall not be accused of presumption in pronouncing it, if properly administered, a most infallible remedy, both in the cure and prevention of scurvy.” (Vide Trotter’s Medicina Nautica.) The precautions adopted by captain Cook in his celebrated voyages, had fully demonstrated by their complete success the practicability of keeping scurvy under in the longest voyages, but a uniform system of prevention throughout the service was still deficient.
It is to the representations of Dr. Blair and sir Gilbert Blane, in their capacity of commissioners of the board for sick and wounded seamen, in 1795, we believe, that its systematic introduction into nautical diet, by a general order of the admiralty, is owing. The effect of this wise measure (taken, of course, in conjunction with the general causes of improved health,) may be estimated from the following facts:—In 1780, the number of cases of scurvy received into Haslar hospital was 1457; in 1806 one only, and in 1807 one. There are now many surgeons in the navy who have never seen the disease.
[15] Throughout France the conductor is recognised as a most valuable and useful instrument; and in those parts of Germany where thunder-storms are still more common and tremendous they are become nearly universal. In Munich there is hardly a modern house unprovided with them, and of a much better construction than ours—several copper wires twisted into a rope.