[* Phil.  Transact. vol. lix. p. 446.]

It hath been alleged, that the scurvy is much owing to the coldness of the air, which checks perspiration, and on that account is the endemic distemper of the northern nations, particularly of those around the Baltic*.  The fact is partly true, but I doubt not so the cause.  In those regions, by the long and severe winters, the cattle destitute of pasture can barely live, and are therefore unfit for use; so that the people, for their provision during that season, are obliged to slaughter them by the end of autumn, and to salt them for above half the year.  This putrid diet then, on which they must subsist so long, and to which the inhabitants of the south are not reduced, seems to be the chief cause of the disease.  And if we reflect that 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