Splendid popular history. (Illustrated throughout)
A spirited, stimulating account of how the cure for the feared disease was found, lost, and found again.
Scurvy can strike anyone whose diet lacks vitamin C, writes naval historian Bown (Sightseers and Scholars, not reviewed), but it became a scourge during the Age of Sail, when perhaps two million seafarers died from its effects. The author pursues the disease’s history on two fronts: how scurvy’s treatment hinged on the slow evolution of medical science, and the pivotal role played by the social and political connections of those proposing remedies for the disease. In fleet prose, Bown introduces both drama and incredulity into the mix. Lemon juice was used to defeat scurvy as early as 1593, and mariners of the Dutch East India Company drank it routinely into the 1630s. By the end of the 17th century, however, “the notion that scurvy was caused by foul vapors or an imbalance in the bodily humours had replaced the practical, commonsensical observations of seamen, much to the detriment of mariners.” James Lind, a ship’s surgeon who conducted controlled experiments, identified citrus juice as the cure for scurvy in 1753, but his work was contradicted by other respected, influential physicians who had the ear of men with the power to do something about the conditions that caused the disease . . . and did the wrong thing. Although the explorer James Cook, who had an instinctive regard for hygiene and diet, led scurvy-free voyages in the 1760s and ’70s, he was unsure about the most effective antiscorbutic. Not until 1795, when fashionable and well-connected physician Gilbert Blane persuaded naval authorities to issue daily rations of lemon juice to all sailors was scurvy conquered once and for all. Bown also describes how the disease played a significant role in international affairs, particularly in the outcomes of the American Revolution and the defeat of the French navy by the British in the late 18th century.
Splendid popular history. (Illustrated throughout)Pub Date: March 17, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-31391-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2004
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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