In Magellan’s day, scurvy was a disease new to Europe, a terrible by-product of the Age of Discovery. In 1498, Vasco da Gama’s crew, exploring the African coast for Portugal, suffered the first widely noted outbreak. Da Gama observed that his men developed the telltale swelling of hands, feet, and gums. He also wrote of Arab traders offering oranges to the afflicted sailors, and the men making a miraculous recovery thereafter; the clear implication is that the Arabs, more accustomed to long ocean voyages than their European counterparts, knew the affliction and its cure.
