Yankee Scurvy

For almost 200 years physicians have known that a few spoonfuls of orange or lemon juice every day will prevent the painful hemorrhages, loose teeth, swollen legs and brittle bones of scurvy. Scurvy is still a disease of Dixie farmers, many of whom do not get enough fresh fruits or vegetables containing antiscorbutic Vitamin C, but last week it was also ravaging Yankees in Maine.

Public health officers were amazed when George W. Leadbetter, State Health Commissioner of Maine, reported that there were 5,000 cases of scurvy among the lumberjacks and farmers of Aroostook County, on the northern border of the State. Reason : thousands of Aroostookians are unemployed, with no money to buy lemons or oranges, and not many of them had taken the trouble to grow and can tomatoes, which are especially rich in Vitamin C.

Scarcely had Commissioner Leadbetter appealed for aid than the New Deal's Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation packed up crates of oranges and grapefruit to send to Maine. Few medicines will help victims of scurvy, and best cure for the disease lies in an abundance of natural fruit juices. But although he appreciated Federal aid, Commissioner Lead-better's medical director, Dr. George Holden Coombs, made it clear that proud Republican Maine could solve her scurvy problem her own way. "Vitamin C," he said, ". . . is present in the potatoes which are raised in large quantities there in Aroostook. But it is readily lost if the potato is cooked after peeling. Vitamin C is readily soluble in water. We would seek to educate housewives to-use such water in the making of soup ... so that it may give its Vitamin C to the human system."

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