The second winter was when the situation became critical.
## Scurvy: The Disease That Changed Everything
Scurvy is caused by vitamin C deficiency and is one of the oldest documented nutritional diseases in human history. It killed sailors on long voyages for centuries, killed polar explorers in the nineteenth century, and continued to kill people in the twentieth century in conditions where fresh food was unavailable for extended periods.
The body requires vitamin C for collagen synthesis — the process by which the body builds and maintains connective tissue. Without vitamin C, collagen breaks down. This breakdown manifests progressively: first fatigue and irritability, then joint pain, then the gums begin to recede and bleed, then old wounds reopen (because the collagen maintaining scar tissue also degrades), then more severe symptoms including hemorrhaging, and eventually death.
The treatment for scurvy is fresh food containing vitamin C. For Arctic explorers, this means fresh meat — particularly raw or minimally cooked meat, which retains vitamin C that is destroyed by prolonged cooking. Indigenous Arctic peoples had understood this for millennia, which is why scurvy was relatively uncommon in Indigenous Arctic communities: their diet was structured around fresh marine mammals and other animals whose meat provided the vitamins that preserved life.
The expedition’s diet was based on the provisions they had brought from Nome, supplemented by what they could hunt. As the provisions ran out and hunting became more difficult, the balance shifted toward a less nutritious diet. Lorne Knight’s vulnerability to scurvy may have been individual — some people develop the condition more rapidly than others — or it may have reflected his specific diet during the difficult second winter.