ABSTRACT
The most obvious complaint in Britain and Europe occurred among populations with limited access to fresh fruit and vegetables. In early eighteenth-century Britain, there was a range of ideas about the causes of scurvy. Damp and cold air, noxious gas, inactivity or exhaustion were all regarded as dangerous, but the potential risks of an inadequate diet were also considered, and, eventually, experiments were undertaken with different types of supplements. It was difficult for contemporaries to theorise why fruit and vegetables had antiscorbutic properties. The perceptive doctor Thomas Trotter wrote in 1797 that 'vegetable matter imparts a something to the body’ so postulated the presence of the substance that would later be labelled 'vitamin C’. Traditional eating patterns can be difficult to alter, particularly if any undue cost is involved and even when health benefits can be proven.
