This episode was suggested by Mina. If you'd like to suggest a topic, you can do so on Facebook and

Instagram at Morbid Curiosity Podcast and on our website, www.morbidcuriositypodcast.com. This episode includes

graphic discussions of disease symptoms and animal experimentation.

If these subjects are triggers for you, it may be a good episode to skip.

Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so the mysterious and unsolved.

Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people.

My name is Hallie, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast.

Scurvy is one of the oldest diseases in human history.

It's also one of the few dietary diseases that has excessively tormented humankind.

An estimated two million sailors died of scurvy between the 16th and 18th century CE. Scurvy was responsible for more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat, and all

other diseases combined. Scurvy is not caused by bacteria, virus, or prion.

It's caused by a simple lack of a single essential nutrient, vitamin C.

The human body doesn't naturally make vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid,

but it needs it for many essential bodily processes.

Vitamin C plays a major role in the synthesis of collagen, the main structural protein of connective

tissues and blood vessels in the human body. It's part of tendons, joints, muscles, arteries,

organs, hair, as well as layers of skin and the cornea

of the eyes. Vitamin C also promotes iron absorption and mobilization, which is essential for red

blood cell creation and clotting. It's also involved in the breakdown of fatty acids, the

synthesis of several neurotransmitters involved in the breakdown of fatty acids, the synthesis of several neurotransmitters

involved in the stress response and the immune response.

We get vitamin C from eating foods that contain it, such as raw fresh fruit and vegetables.

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