A Little Bit Of History

Between the years of 1600 and 1800 more than one million British sailors died of scurvy. In the middle of the 1500s, while sailing on the river St. Lawrence, in America, French sailor Jacques Cartier lost most of his ships, due to an accident caused by an icetrap! The crew contained 110 sailors, among which 25 died and most of them stayed in a very bad condition. An Indian aborigine made them a drink, which was a mixture of banks and pine-needles. Although he was not a scientist, he discovered a drink full of C-vitamins. The crew's condition became better and better. After they had arrived home, Cartier reported the happenings. The authorities did not take him and the „witches'kitchen" serious, and did not make a move in any direction. For more than 200 years scurvy had been killing people all over the world.

In 1747, John Lind, who was a medical assistant at the British navy, discovered that orange and lemon juice do relieve scurvy. He suggested that citrus should always be present on long journeys.

His suggestion was practically accepted 48 years after.

If we do some mathematics, we realize that nearly 260 years had passed since Cartier met the Indian.

While waiting for the authorities to accept something revolutionary, we very often meet obstacles. Progress, new aims, and the success behind- these all achieved in an honest way is a very difficult task to do.

Ignaz Semmelweis is known all over the world as the „savior of mothers". He had been fiercely struggling all over his life to have his doctrines accepted. His doctors performed autopsy as well, but in general, medical men examined confinement women without washing their hands, thus, unwillingly, causing the poor women's death. Forcefully, Semmelweis made them clean their hands in chloric water. Thereafter, he found himself in hostility, he lost his job and he was made fun of. Twenty five years after his discovery, on the occassion of an international medical congress in Berlin, all his „non-scientific" doctrines were rejected! The well-known scientist could not work up this incomprehension, and his mind went wrong!

Andreas Vesalius could not do better himself! His anatomic discovery was not acknowledged, he had to leave the country, he was said to be a heretic. Nowadays he is one of the biggest figures in medicine.

William Harvey was said to be irresponsible when saying that heart pumps blood into the arteries, and this is how circulaion comes into being. Shocking!

Wilhelm C. Röntgen was accused that with the help of his mysterious rays he wanted to probe the happenings in the bedroom.

Columbus was stated to be mad because he said that Earth was round and that it could be sailed around.

Giordano Bruno sufferred a stake, because his opinion was that Earth is not the centre of the Universe.

On the edge of dying, Gallilei was forced to retract his doctrines within the sense that the Earth moves around the Sun and not vice versa.

They are all remarcable figures, who had to struggle hard to show their truth!
My respect to all of them!