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Scurvy : the disease of discovery / Jonathan Lamb ; with a coda written by James May and Fiona Harrison.

Scurvy : the disease of discovery / Jonathan Lamb ; with a coda written by James May and Fiona Harrison.
Catalogue Information
Field name Details
ISBN 9780691182933 (paperback)
Author Lamb, Jonathan, 1945- (author.)
Title Scurvy : the disease of discovery / Jonathan Lamb ; with a coda written by James May and Fiona Harrison.
Publisher and/or associated date/s Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2017]
©2017.
Description xii, 305 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour) ; 23 cm.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [279]-298) and index.
Contents Enigma -- Effluvia -- Nostalgia -- Australia -- Genera mixta.
Summary Scurvy, a disease often associated with long stretches of maritime travel, generated sensations exceeding the standard of what was normal. Eyes dazzled, skin was morbidly sensitive, emotions veered between disgust and delight. In this book, Jonathan Lamb presents an intellectual history of scurvy unlike any other, probing the speechless encounter with powerful sensations to tell the story of the disease that its victims couldn't because they found their illness too terrible and, in some cases, too exciting. Drawing on historical accounts from scientists and voyagers as well as major literary works, Lamb traces the cultural impact of scurvy during the eighteenth-century age of geographical and scientific discovery. He explains the medical knowledge surrounding scurvy and the debates about its cause, prevention, and attempted cures. He vividly describes the phenomenon and experience of "scorbutic nostalgia," in which victims imagined mirages of food, water, or home, and then wept when such pleasures proved impossible to consume or reach. Lamb argues that a culture of scurvy arose in the colony of Australia, which was prey to the disease in its early years, and identifies a literature of scurvy in the works of such figures as Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francis Bacon, and Jonathan Swift. Masterful and illuminating, Scurvy shows how the journeys of discovery in the eighteenth century not only ventured outward to the ends of the earth, but were also an inward voyage into the realms of sensation and passion.
Subjects Scurvy
Other Authors &/or Associated Persons May, James M. (James Marion), 1947- (contributor.)
Harrison, Fiona (contributor.)
Call number 2019.091
Catalogue Information 100074240 Beginning of record . Catalogue Information 100074240 Top of page .
Item Information
Barcode Shelf Location Collection Volume Ref. Status Due Date
A00934265 2019.091
General Collection   . Available to Museum Staff .  
. Catalogue Record 100074240 ItemInfo Beginning of record . Catalogue Record 100074240 ItemInfo Top of page .