The cure for scurvy became known to Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama when, in 1498, he stopped in Mombasa, along the east coast of Africa, on his way to India – the first such maritime voyage by a European in history. The African king fed the ship’s sailors oranges and lemons, and the disease, which often can be fatal to sailors on ships that remain at sea longer than ten weeks, cleared up. The remedy became a naval secret, then a rumor, and, eventually, folk wisdom. Only in 1747, when British Navy surgeon James Lind performed his famous experiment, did…