The Essex survivors were in much worse shape than the volunteers in the Minnesota experiment. After three months of abuse, their digestive systems had a difficult time handling the intake of increased quantities of food—a problem shared by Captain David Harrison of the Peggy in 1765. Upon his rescue, Harrison was given some chicken broth. It had been thirty-seven days since he’d last had a bowel movement, and soon after drinking some of the broth, he was wracked by excruciating abdominal pain. “I was . . . at last relieved,” Harrison wrote, “by the discharge of a callous lump about the size of
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