Captain Cook begins his list of stores with malt.  Of this, he says, was made Sweet Wort, and given not only to those men who had manifest symptoms of the scurvy, but to such also as were judged to be most liable to it.  Dr. Macbride, who first suggested this preparation, was led (as he says) to the discovery by some experiments that had been laid before this Society; by which it appeared that the air produced by alimentary fermentation was endowed with a power of correcting putrefaction*.  The fact he confirmed by numerous trials, and finding this fluid to be fixed air, he justly concluded, that whatever substance proper for food abounded with it, and which could be conveniently carried to sea, would make one of the best provisions against the scurvy; which he then considered as a putrid disease, and as such to be prevented or cured by that powerful kind of antiseptic**.  Beer, for instance, had always been esteemed one of the best antiscorbutics; but as that derived all its fixed air from the malt of which it is made, he inferred that malt itself was preferable in long voyages, as it took up less room than the brewed liquor, and would keep longer found.  Experience hath since verified this ingenious theory, and the malt hath now gained so much credit in the navy, that there only wanted so long, so healthful, and so celebrated a voyage as this, to rank it among the most indispensable articles of provision.  For though Captain Cook remarks, that A proper attention to other things must be joined, and that he is not altogether of opinion, that the wort will be able to cure the scurvy in an advanced state at sea; yet he is persuaded that it is sufficient to prevent that distemper from making any great progress, for a considerable time; and therefore he doth not hesitate to pronounce it one of the best antiscorbutic medicines yet found out***.

[* Append. to my Observations on the Diseases of the Army.]

[** Macbride’s Exper.  Eff. passim.]

[*** Having been favoured with a sight of the medical journal of Mr. Patten, surgeon to the Resolution, I read the following passage in it, not a little strengthening the above testimony. I have found the wort of the utmost service in all scorbutic cases during the voyage.  As many took it by way of prevention, few cases occurred where it had a fair trial; but theft, however, I flatter myself, will he sufficient to convince every impartial person, that it is the best remedy hitherto found out for the cure of the sea scurvy:  and I am well convinced, from what I have seen the wort perform, and from its mode of operation, that if aided by portable-soup, sour krout, sugar, sago, and courants, then scurvy, that maritime pestilence, will seldom or never make its alarming appearance among a ship’s crew, on the longest voyages; proper care with regard to cleanliness and provisions being observed.]

This salutary gas (or fixed air) is contained more or less in all fermentable liquors, and begins to oppose putrefaction as soon as the working or intestine motion commences.