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 months when fresh fruits were not available. It may also have been brewed in Scandinavia prior to European contact with the Americas, but most French and British explorers were ignorant of its use as a treatment for scurvy when they arrived in North America. The First Nations people were probably first to brew it and it was used to prevent scurvy by Jacques Cartier and his explorers when they arrived in Stadacona in what is now Quebec in 1535. The fresh shoots of many spruces and pines are a natural source of vitamin C. European sailors adopted the practice and