#humours

╋Father Eerie is ready to absolve your sins━

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However, it is related, as during my research I've discovered that a major point of contention in the fandom of our beloved gay show is whether, in the face of Swede's scurvy, Stede wantonly hoarded his marmalade rather than give it over for the good of the crew.

Now don't get me wrong, there is much fun to be had with this notion, and the Rule of Funny should definitely outweigh historical accuracy here. However!

Stede would not necessarily guess that his marmalade would be useful for scurvy

Leaving aside the fact that there wasn't what we'd call a proper scientific study of scurvy cures until 30 years later (and they'd still get it wrong)-- take a look at the remedies people of Stede's class would've known about from various household manuals available at the time. Here are two, from The Accomplish'd Lady's Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery (1675):

Dr. Deodates drink for the Scurvy

To make an excellent Syrup against the Scurvy

Both do include oranges and lemons (either in sliced or juice form), but their real primary ingredient was scurvy-grass, which had all the benefits of being both the subject of a popular treatise published during Stede's childhood and, uh, working really well.

But even with that, ingesting scurvy-grass or citrus fruits was kind of an anecdotal cure -- Learned Medical Professionals and Super Sensible White Dudes weren't so convinced, and instead were pretty sure that the only thing oranges and lemons did was help unblock sweat glands, which while helpful surely SURELY was only a minor assist rather than a full-blown cure.

"But how do oranges unblock sweat glands?" I hear you cry, and thank you for asking don't worry it's very scientific, you see as we ALL KNOW sweat glands can get blocked when cold sea air keeps you from sweating and NATURALLY this leads to an EXCESS OF MORBID HUMOURS that cause SUNDRY MEDICAL AILMENTS and probably a change to your personality don't worry about it but BUT thank heavens we also DEFINITELY KNOW that since orange "rynde is hotte in the fyrst degree, and drye in the second: [and] the iuyce of them is colde in the seconde degree, and drye in the fyrste" BASICALLY IT'S DRY, OKAY, PRETTY DANG DRY that means ingesting oranges helps BALANCE THE WET AIR and NOW YOU CAN SWEAT and so probably YOU DON'T HAVE SCURVY ANYMORE.

Science.