re: #145 silverdolphin

Traveling the globe in sailing vessels was very dangerous 400 ywars ago.Not only the elements killed 1000s (rogue waves still are dangerous) but a lack of understanding of human health (ie scurvy) killed even more (the British would have had a much easier time with the Revolution if scrvy had not caused so much distress in its Navy.). It took over 200 years to find a cure for scurvy and almost 400 to understand what caused it.

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It also created the need to develop better clocks and watches