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50 it under proper management, that Dr. Blane now addressed himself; and in this humane and patriotic purpose he was ably seconded by Earl Spencer, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty. The Doctor well knew that the only antiscorbutics available for the prevention or cure of sea-scurvy are those vegetables in which acid predominates; and that of all fruits, the genus citrus is most effective. Here, then, was the remedy; and since the fruit could not be carried fresh during a long voyage, the preserved juice might be used as a substitute. Such was the cure he suggested, and through the influence of Earl Spencer, it was immediately introduced throughout the whole British navy. Several gallons of lemon juice, having a tenth part of spirit of wine, to preserve it, was supplied to each ship; and, in a fortnight after leaving the port, the use of it began, each sailor being allowed one ounce of it, with an ounce and a half of sugar, to mix with his grog or wine. The immense advantages of an innovation apparently so very simple—and therefore so very difficult to be discovered—were quickly apparent. In the statistics of our navy we find, that during nine years of consecutive warfare from 1778 to 1795, the number of men voted for the service by parliament was 745,000, of whom 189,730 were sent sick on shore, or to the hospitals. But during the nine following years of consecutive warfare, that is to say, from 1796, when the use of lime juice was introduced into the navy, till 1806, during which period 1,053,076 men were voted for sea-service, of these, the sick amounted to no more than 123,949. The amount of disease had thus diminished by one-half, because scurvy had almost wholly disappeared; and our fleets, instead of being utterly drained of their seamen, as would have been the case under the former ratio, were enabled for twenty years to go onward in a career of victory unchecked, and repair their losses as fast as they occurred. And the merchant service, too, from which these victories derive their value, has been equally benefited by the remedy of Dr. Blane, so that its vessels may traverse every sea in safety, and return after the longest voyages with a healthy and happy crew; while a spectacle such as had been seen more than once—like that of the Oriflamma, for instance, where the whole crew had died, and the deck was piled with the corpses, while not a hand was left to guide her course as she slowly drifted before the wind—would be reckoned as impossible as a realization of the tale of the "Ancient Mariner."

The famine which prevailed over the whole of Britain during the years 1799 and 1800, was too severe to be easily forgotten by the present generation; and, with the view of directing attention to its alleviation, as well as preventing its recurrence, Dr. Blane published in 1800 an "Inquiry into the Causes and Remedies of the Late and Present Scarcity and High Price of Provisions; with Observations on the Distresses of Agriculture and Commerce which have prevailed for the last three years." As he had now attained a high medical reputation, and enjoyed an extensive private practice in addition to his public duties, he resigned the office of physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, after having held it twenty years. The fruits of his observations during that period he gave to the world in a dissertation "On the Comparative Prevalence and Mortality of Different Diseases in London," which was first published in the "Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society," and afterwards embodied in his "Select Dissertations." The unhappy Walcheren expedition was one of the last public services on which Blane was employed. That island of fogs, swamps, and pestilential vapours had loomed so alluringly in the eyes of our statesmen, that nothing short of its possession would satisfy them, and one of the largest