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POLAR EXPLORATION

as a preventive and cure, but doubtlessly the best that can be said of it is that it will do no harm using it in cases of scurvy, and it may or may not be useful in other directions. On board the Balæna one ounce of lime-juice was regularly served, "according to the act," every day to every man on board, and yet, on the return voyage to Britain, one and all were more or less tainted with scurvy, including one seaman who was very seriously ill, and who was receiving fully two ounces of lime-juice a day. The Balæna, flying the yellow flag, put in at Portland for coal and potatoes, and apparently the potatoes, which were ravenously devoured by the crew in the raw state when they came on board, and which were afterwards copiously served out boiled, had the wonderful effect of largely obliterating the scurvy before the vessel reached Dundee four days later. While as to the seaman who was utterly prostrated, and who was so ill that he was expected to die any day, he so far recovered as to be able to walk ashore in Dundee. At the same time the Norwegian ship Jason, that did exactly the same voyage as the Balæna, had no lime-juice on board, and had not the least trace of any scorbutic symptoms.

Dr. William H. Neale, who spent the winter of 1881–82 with Mr. Leigh Smith in Franz Josef Land, in The Practitioner for June 1896,