Etiology time, and often lacked fresh fruit and vegetables. Without knowing the precise cause, Captain James Cook suspected scurvy was caused by the lack of vegetables in the diet. Based on his suspicion, he forced his crew to eat sauerkraut, a cabbage preparation, every day, and based upon the positive outcomes, he inferred that it prevented scurvy, even though he did not know precisely why. It took about another two hundred years to discover the precise etiology: the lack of vitamin C in a sailor's diet. An etiological myth, or origin myth, is a myth intended to explain the origins of
Spruce beer spread it across the world. In 1536, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, exploring the St. Lawrence River, used the local natives' knowledge to save his men who were dying of scurvy. He boiled the needles of a tree the St. Lawrence Iroquoians called the "Aneda" (probably "Thuja occidentalis") to make a tea that was later shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams. Such treatments were not available aboard ship, where the disease was most common. When Samuel de Champlain arrived 72 years later, he could not ask the locals which tree should be used, as the