© 1988 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
Articles |
Scurvy in Ireland during the Great Famine
* Department of Economic and Social History, The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN.
SUMMARY: The vitamin deficiency disease, scurvy, appeared among the labouring population of Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845–8. For several decades early in the eighteenth century the potato was the mainstay of the diet eaten by the Irish labouring classes, and so was their chief source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Potatoes were consumed in large quantities. Estimates suggest a daily consumption of between 10 and 12 lb. per day by a labouring man. Even allowing for considerable losses of vitamin C, during storage and cooking, the Irish nevertheless, were conditioned to a large daily intake of ascorbic acid. Thus the failure of successive potato harvests because of phytophthora infestans (potato blight) meant the total withdrawal of the population's main supply of vitamin C. As a result scorbutic symptoms appeared. A very rare disease during the previous decades its appearance caused considerable comments in the medical literature of the day. The widespread nature of the disease at a time when the country was experiencing a major food crisis prompted some physicians to conclude that the failure of the potato crop was associated with this outbreak of scurvy. The absence of civil registration of births, deaths, and marriages in Ireland at this time masks the scale of the outbreak.
Keywords: ascorbic acid; diet; Great Famine; Ireland; labouring class; nineteenth century; potato; scurvy; vitamin C; workhouse diet