Scurvy is a disease caused by a dietary deficiency of vitamin C
(ascorbic acid). The disease has occurred with regular frequency
throughout human history and prehistory in populations lacking
fresh foods … Deficiency of the vitamin causes a breakdown in
the binding function of these tissues, producing a series of
characteristic signs and symptoms: weakness, lethargy,
irritability, anemia, purple spongy gums which bleed freely,
loosening teeth, the reopening of healed scars … and
hemorrhaging in the mucous membranes and skin. In severe cases
the mortality rate is high.Up until then, I’d believed that
scars were stronger than regular skin. When in fact they're
weaker. Maybe this was something most everybody else knew, but
it really shook me up. The mantra “What doesn’t kill you makes
you stronger” is so satisfying. “What doesn’t kill you leaves a
scar that may weaken and rupture again if stressed” is kind of
scary. I got to thinking about this recently when I was doing a
computer search to see if a paper I’d ha