What Is Scurvy Disease and its Symptoms

Scurvy is a disease that occurs due to the deficiency of vitamin c in an individual required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. vitamin c is also known as ascorbic acid, vitamin c is present in an abundance in plants and animals. the signs of this disease include the formation of spots on the skin of the person and spongy gums to occur and mucous membranes may even start to bleed.

What Is Scurvy Disease and its Symptoms

Spots get formed in a large amount on the legs and thighed of the person who starts looking pale and feeling often depressed and half inable to walk.

With the advancement of the disease, the open and suppurating wounds may start to occur with a loss of the teeth and in some cases jaundice may even occur with other signs like fever, neuropathy and then followed by the death.

Scurvy does not occur among animals as they have the ability to synthesize their own vitamin c so they don’t feel the need of any other external resource, but we humans and other some primates like the simians, the monkeys and the apes and the guinea pigs and most of the bats and some species of birds also lack an enzyme that becomes a drawback for them to lack to produce their own vitamin c and so they have to depend on plants and their fruits to fulfill their requirement of vitamin c and failing which they get risk prone to scurvy.

A balanced diet is a cure to many of the health problems that occur with humans and hence one should take a diet rich in all the essential nutrients to be disease free.

Sailors and pirates used to be much determined about discovering new places and discovering new countries and so this disease was the most common among them as the ships were to travel thousands of miles and despite this distance they were not having adequate fruits and vegetables with them and instead they carried salted meat and dried grains in their ships with them and hence dying due to the shortage of vitamin c.

scurvy was the disease most common among the people associated with marine travels. Scurvy is caused by nutritional deficiency and this can be recovered by eating adequate amount of fruits and veggies. intake of citrus fruits like lemon, oranges etc lowers down the risk of this disease and it is the only treatment of this disease.