Increasingly emaciated, thirsty, sleep-deprived and weakened by seasickness, those unused to the shipboard life succumbed to dysentery and fever, and almost unnoticed, despite whatever dried fruit, onions or beans were initially included in their diet before they became inedible, the whole crew experienced the slow but steady advance of the sailor’s disease. Without adequate vitamin C, symptoms present themselves after sixty-eight days; men start to die after eighty-four; in 111 days scurvy wipes out a whole crew. For Gama’s men, the clock was ticking.
