Just down the road from me is the:
Posted on 11/30/2004 7:08:36 PM PST by blam
Study: Scurvy Hit Early N. American French Colony
Mon Nov 29,12:40 PM ET Science - Reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scurvy wiped out nearly half of the colonists who established one of the first French settlements in North America 400 years ago, scientists confirmed on Monday.
Picture Perfect How to choose the right digital camera, plus the best printers and online photo services.
The colony existed in 1604 and 1605 on St. Croix Island off present-day Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Nearly half of the 79 settlers died during the harsh winter, prompting survivors to move to what is now Nova Scotia in the summer of 1605.
It was one of the earliest European outposts on the North Atlantic coast of North America, preceding Jamestown by three years and Plymouth by 16 years.
Researchers at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine, said they used a process called multi-detector computed tomography to examine the bones of colonists disinterred in 1969. They were scanned before being reburied on the island in 2003.
"We were able to visualize the entire skull from every angle, inside and out. Scans of the skull and leg bones revealed a thick hard palate in the mouth and an extra layer of bony tissue on the femur and tibia, which we believe resulted from the internal bleeding associated with scurvy," said John Benson, director of medical imaging at the hospital.
His report was released in Chicago in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Scurvy, a fatal disease characterized by weakness, anemia, gum disease and internal bleeding, is caused a lack of vitamin C, which is found in citrus fruits, tomatoes and some vegetables.
Based on cut marks found in one of the skulls, researchers also said they think colonists on Saint Croix Island conducted autopsies to try to find out what was killing their fellow settlers.
Samuel de Champlain, who was part of the St. Croix expedition headed by nobleman-courtier Pierre Dugua Sieur de Mons, described in gruesome detail the symptoms of the disease, which he called land-sickness or scurvy.
"There developed in the mouths of those who had it, large pieces of excess fungus flesh which caused a great rot," he wrote in his travel journal. "Their teeth barely held in place, and could be removed with the fingers without causing pain.
"This excess flesh was often cut away, which caused them to bleed extensively from the mouth. Afterwards, severe pain developed in the arms and legs, which became swollen and very hard and covered with spots like fleabites."
The 6.5-acre island in the St. Croix River, which divides the United States and Canada, is now an international historic site.
Know why the Brits are sometimes know as 'Limeys'?
I thought it was Vit C? Remember the original Mutiny on the Bounty? If they had only figured out how to make tang!
I thought it caused Rickets, which is a bone problem. Anyway, the human body makes vitamin D from sun light.
Please add the word 'French' to the title. Thanks.
This is consistent with the old family story that "First they went to Canada, but it was too cold, then they went to Virginia, but it was too warm. Finally, they went to New York, and that was just right."
Uuuuhhh, that comes with the "Our family started out with three brothers" story. It has variations. I'm pretty sure the "three brothers" derive from the Lene Lenape and Mohican story of the "three boys" who founded their religion. On the other hand, the actual path of migration of these earliest of Huguenot settlers is quite accurate.
Many Freepers know these stories from researching their own family histories.
Did you see that? Half died!
Half.
And they still came. There was a vision.
Lack of vitamin C causes scurvy. Lack of vitamin D causes rickets.
It's interesting that they describe scurvy as fatal, as it is reversible if corrected early enough. Jack London suffered from scurvy while in the Yukon Territory, if I recall correctly.
That's was my point. They were probably covered up a lot.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris (bless his soul) said that it was a lack of vitamin D that caused people to turn white.
Your knowledge amazes me. Is there anything that you don't know about?
Did you ever take a good look at Pasajeros de los Indies? It's a record of all the Spanish passenger trips to Florida in the 16th Century. Every Virginia library with a "Virginia Room" has a copy if you can't find one locally.
Huguenots, or even Spanish Protestants, were regular passengers on Spanish ships going to Florida, or taking ship to London ~ Spanish ships regularly traveled from Florida to UK in those days ~ simply unbelievable!
BTW, to the Spanish "Florida" was everything between the Gulf of Mexico and the St. Lawrence River!
Every now and then I take a good look at the name lists and check the internet to see if anybody has come up with anything new on that person. Amazingly they do.
There's a website structure that focuses on De Soto's journey through Florida in 1540. He went to a number of places that any Huguenot researcher would recognize as Ohio Valley sites later selected by French Protestants for settlement in the early 1700s. You might want to read through http://hernando-desoto.com/brief.html to get a better idea of the mid 1500s in America, aka "Florida".
With the new understanding of DeSoto's actual travels we know the Indians didn't lie to him about where gold might be located. They consistently pointed precisely in the direction of the Brown/Morgan county glacial hills in Indiana. The gold was formally "discovered" in the 1800s and just about worked out by the 1930s when most of the miners departed for Alaska and the Yukon.
DeSoto encountered the Chickasaw Indians. These are the folks with the "cut the horse loose" story ~ they followed the horse from the far West Eastward into Oklahoma at about the same time descendants of the New Sweden Colony also "cut the horse loose" and ended up in the same area by traveling Westward.
Odds are the New Sweden colonists had their own copy of DeSoto's diary, an extensive compendium of Middle American lore, geography and condition. One wonders if the Chickasaw did too.
"Know why the Brits are sometimes know as 'Limeys'?"
And the Germans were called Krauts? Both limes and sour kraut were good sources of vitamin C for their navies.
One average size rose hip has as much vitamin C as an orange. Up north wild roses produce the hips in the fall after the roses bloom, the colony was no doubt looking right at their savation as they died, the rose hip.
We made a lot of rose hip jam when we lived in Alaska, was really quite tasty.
Just down the road from me is the:
Scurvy is simply caused by a shortage of Vitamin C, not D.
The same folks that are pushing for embryonic stem cells probably have their mits in this.
Embryonic stem cells cause tumors -- whereas recent results have shown great potential with ambilical cord stem cells.
Since Harvard, supposedly one of the most prestigious Universities of the United States, cannot even spell the name of the most famous Indian language dictionary [and probably oldest] in the United States.
This is the dictionary of Father Sebastion Râle. Of course this is the French spelling. The spelling in the Anthropology Museum at Harvard should have the correct Old English spelling of Râle, which is Ralle. However, Harvard is a worse speller than any Politician, and cannot even get the first letter right.
They have as the author -- Father Kalle.
You see spelling is optional at Harvard -- after all this is a prestigious place for liberals in Massachusetts.
So one has to lower the bar for the liberals to pass.
As for Father Sebastion Râle, he was quite famous once.
A fellow by the name of General Washington heard in some respects about him in trying to honor the reasons the Indians of Maine decided to fight with the Colonists against the British. They wanted another Blackrobe like Father Sebastion Râle.
Father Râle did come a bit later than this colony -- about 90 years later, and he went traveling to Green Bay, Wisconsin before there was a meat packing plant there [which is where the Green Bay Packers get their name -- after the meat packing plant.
It only later that he settled in Maine near, but not that close to areas mentioned in this article.
These scientists need to learn how to spell names before I can believe what they come up with. If Harvard cannot spell the name of the person who wrote an important American Indian Dictionary from circa 1690 to 1722 -- a hundred years before it was published at Harvard -- how can you trust scientists with other more important facts.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
IIRC, wild onions have a sizeable amount of vitamin C also.
Makes sense. Remember, the discovery of the foundations is a relatively new thing. At the time we were doing the work tracking down early Huguenots at Jamestown, that wasn't known. On the other hand, there had been a house built by a Huguenot at Martin's Hundred circa 1590-99 ~ a wattle and daub thing.
The history channel ran a program last Saturday night on Jamestown Secrets narrated by Steve Thomas of This Old House. It was excellent, and I hope they re-run it. My paternal ancestor came to Jamestown on the First Supply -- Edward Gurganey.
My maternal ancestor came on the Kalmar Nyckel to New Sweden as a young man. New Sweden was such a short lived colony that they didn't even teach about it in American History in my school. And our very first President of the United States (under the Articles of Confederation) was from New Sweden -- a man named Hanson. Bet you didn't learn about that either! I suredidn't.
Actually I did. I use that as an example of not believing "what everybody knows." Ask someone who was the first head of state of this nation. Then ask when we became a nation. (If they need prodding, ask about the Fourth of July and the Spirit of...) Then ask what the "other George W" was doing in 1776. You might have to help your listeners along, like mentioning GW standing in a boat crossing the Delaware. So now you get the listeners to realize GW was a general, not a president, back then. Next remind them of the Articles of Confederation, and explain GW was the first CONSTITUTIONAL president, 13 years after we declared our independence.
Another example, which I hesitate to use because I don't want to turn this into yet another Civil War thread.: Lincoln COULD have freed the slaves in places like Maryland the day he became President. His Emancipation Proclamation only applied in the South.
Here is another interesting historic Civil War tidbit: "United States" was plural before the Civil War and became singular after. (e.g., "the United States IS (not 'are') sending troops...")
Discovery Channel also had a show on Jamestown a year or so ago. I'll FReepmail some personal background about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.