Boscawen, sailing from Halifax for Louisberg in 1758, left several ships behind on account of scurvy, one being the Pembroke, of which Cook was Master; she had lost 29 men crossing the Atlantic, but she was able to rejoin before the others as they were in a worse plight.  Wolfe reported to Lord George Sackville that some of the regiments employed at Louisburg had “300 or 400 men eat up with scurvy.”  Of the Northumberland when at Halifax, Lord Colville wrote that frozen (fresh) beef from Boston kept his men healthy when in port, “but the scurvy never fails to pull us down in great numbers upon our going to sea in spring.”

Having had such experiences Cook appears to have made up his mind to fight the dreadful scourge from the very first, and though the popular idea is that he only turned his mind to it during the second voyage, it is very evident that on the Endeavour he fought it successfully, and it is most probable would have laid claim to victory had it not been for the serious losses incurred through the malarial fever and its usual companion, dysentery, contracted at Batavia.  In proof of this reference may be made to the report of Mr. Perry, surgeon’s mate, and, after Mr. Monkhouse’s death, surgeon on board.  He states they rounded the Horn with the crew “as free from scurvy as on our sailing from Plymouth,” i.e. after five months.  He reports for the whole of the voyage, five cases of scurvy, “three in Port at New Holland, and two while on the Coast of New Zealand, not a man more suffered any inconvenience from this distemper.”  He was one of the five cases, but, at the same time, it must not be understood that no others developed symptoms of scurvy, only they were so closely watched and at once subjected to such treatment that the disease was not able to gain the upper hand.  Cook wrote to the Secretary to the Admiralty immediately after his arrival at Batavia, saying, “I have not lost one man from sickness.”  He means here, as elsewhere in his Journals, “sickness” to be taken as scurvy, and at that time he had lost only seven men:  two of Mr. Banks’s servants from exposure; three men drowned; Mr. Buchan, a fit, probably apoplectic; and one man, alcoholic poisoning.  He arrived at home with a total loss of forty-one, including Tupia and his boy; thirty-two of these deaths were from fever and dysentery, and 2, Mr. Hicks and Sutherland, from consumption.

Treatment of scurvy.

The chief anti-scorbutics used on the Endeavour, according to Mr. Perry’s report, were: 

“Sour Kraut, Mustard, Vinegar, Wheat (whole), Inspissated Orange and Lemon juice, Saloup, Portable Soup, Sugar, Molasses, Vegetables (at all times when they could possibly be got), were some in constant, others in occasional use.”

Saloup was a decoction made from the Orchis mascula root, a common meadow plant, or else from Sassafras, and was at one time sold in the streets as a drink before the introduction of tea and coffee.  In the United Service Museum there is a cake of the portable soup which was on board the Endeavour, in appearance like a square of “whitish glue, which in effect it is,” says Sir John Pringle, President of the Royal Society.