hat the lower people of the north have few or no
greens nor fruit in the winter, scarce any fermented liquors, and often
live in damp, foul, and ill-aired houses, it is easy to conceive how they
should become liable to the same distemper with seamen; whilst others of
as high a latitude, but who live in a different manner, keep free from
it. Thus we are informed by Linnaeus, that the Laplanders, one of the
most hyperborean nations, know nothing of the scurvy*; for which no other
reason can be assigned than their never eating salted meats, nor indeed
salt with any thing, but their using all the winter the fresh flesh of
their rain-deer.

[* Bartholin. Med. Danor. Domestic p. 98.]

[** Linnaei Flora Lapponica, p. 8, 9.]

This exemption of the Laplanders from the general distemper of the north
is the more observable, as they seldom taste vegetables, bread never, as
we farther learn from that celebrated author. Yet in the very provinces
which border on Lapland, where they use bread, but scarcely any other
vegetable, and eat salted meats, they are as much troubled with the
scurvy as in any other country*. But let us incidentally remark, that the
late improvements in agriculture, gardening, and the other arts of life,
by extending their influence to the remotest parts of Europe, and to the
lowest people, begin sensibly to lessen the frequency of that complaint,
even in those climates that have been once the most afflicted with it.

[* Linnaeus in several parts of his work confirms what is here said of
salted meats, as one of the chief causes of the scurvy. See Amoenitat.
Acad. vol. v. p. 6. et seq. p. 42.]

It hath also been asserted, that men living on shore will be affected
with the scurvy, though they have never been confined to salted meats;
but of this I have never known any instance, except in those who breathed
a marshy air, or what was otherwise putrid, and who wanted exercise,
fruits, and green vegetables: under such circumstances it must be
granted, that the humours will corrupt in the same manner, though not in
the same degree, with those of mariners. Thus, in the late war, when
Sisinghurst Castle in Kent was filled with French prisoners, the scurvy
broke out among them, notwithstanding they had never been served with
salted victuals in England; but had daily had an allowance of fresh meat,
and of bread in proportion, though without greens or any other vegetable.
The surgeon who attended them, and from whom I re