Sails for Tahiti, Secret Orders, defeats scurvy
In preparation for this voyage which had an important scientific purpose, and which was to waters general considered “unhealthful” for Englishmen Cook got an earful from various members of the Royal Society who had theories about preventing scurvy, measuring longitude, and the existence of “Terra Australis.” This last was a postulated southern continent believed by many to exist because their logic told them that the globe should be balanced by a great southern landmass. Cook and the Endeavor with a crew of 94 seamen and scientists set sail with orders to sail to the recently discovered King George’s Island (Tahiti) and there set up scientific equipment to measure the “transit of Venus” across the face of the sun. This rare astronomical event measured from a variety of angles could be used to solidly calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and other figures.
Aboard the Endeavor were a wide range of “antiscorbutics”, or foodstuffs thought by scientists at home to be cures for the disease called scurvy which was the bane of sailors on long voyages in those days. There was sauerkraut, fresh fruit, recipes for cooking things into the sailors regular food, and several other suggested cures. Cook used them all. The sailors wouldn’t eat the sauerkraut at first, but Cook made it a feature of every meal at the Captain’s mess, and optional for all hands. Before long they were requesting it so often it had to be made a regular ration again. British ships had been carrying limes against scurvy for over 100 years without universal success. Cook’s insistence on an always varied diet, and fresh vegetable matter of any kind from land whenever it could be had finally defeated this old killer of sailors for good. There wasn’t a single case of scurvy on any of Cook’s three Pacific voyages despite several of them lasting for periods of years. Some do not credit him on his first voyage, because he lost many men off the Endeavor to dysentery after bad water from the Dutch settlement at Java.
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