Germinated Seeds As Antiscorbutics: Western Use of An Ancient Chinese Botanical Medicine

MARTHA H. OLIVER 1

Vasco da Gama's tr ip a round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 marked the begin- ning of the great per iod of European naval exp lora t ion , which b lossomed dur ing the 18 th Century . Tha t voyage was also one of the first to be marked by what was to b e c o m e the scourge of 18 th -Cen tu ry sea voyages, scurvy. More than half of da Gama's crew died of this " fo rmidab l e and o f t en fatal disease, arising f rom imper fec t n u t r i t i o n " (Rees, 1819) . The horr ible s y m p t o m s of the disease are vividly descr ibed in the epic poem a b o u t t ha t voyage, the Lusiads of Camoens (Roddis , 1941) :

A dread disease its rankling horrors shed, Death's dire ravage through mine army spread, Never mine eyes such dreary sight beheld; Ghastly the mouths and gums enormous swelled And instant, putrid like a dead man's wound Poisoned with fetid streams the air around, No sage physicians's ever watchful zeal No skilled surgeon's gentle hand to heal Were found; each dreary mournful hour we gave Some brave companion to a foreign grave.

Magellan's crew, which circumnavi- gated the globe in 1519, suffered terr ib ly f rom scurvy; large numbers of men were lost. Jacques Carrier 's voyage to the Gul f of St. Lawrence in 1536 was equal ly str icken. The mos t famous of these unfor- tuna te voyages, however , was tha t of Lord Anson in 1740; of 961 crew member s leaving England in three ships, 626 died of scurvy and associated maladies by the t ime they reached their des t ina t ion , Juan Fernandez , an island group in the Sou th Pacific a bou t 400 miles west of Valpa- raiso, Chile (Allison, 1943) . In 1781 one man in seven died o f scurvy in the British Navy.

In the c o n t e x t o f these ca tas t rophes , seemingly unavoidable , the ach ievement of Captain James Cook begins to seem like

B o x 78, RD 1, Scottdale, Pennsylvania. Submitted for publication February 15, 1972.

someth ing of a miracle. In the long voyage of the Endeavour, which lef t P l y m o u t h , England, August 26, 1768, and anchored in the Downs July 13, 1771, a per iod o f a lmost th ree years, n o t a single dea th f rom scurvy occur red (Merrill, 1954) . Similar- ly, on his voyage to the Indies f r o m July of 1772 to 1775 wi th the Resolution and the Adventure, he had a few slight cases of the disease, bu t n o t one life was lost (Alli- son, 1943) . Cook himself real ized tha t his geographical discoveries, however re- markable , were less significant than this exper imen ta l p r o o f tha t a long ocean voyage could be carr ied o u t w i t h o u t any scorbut ic morb id i ty . The final en t ry in his journal , da ted July, 1775, reads:

But whatever may be the public judgement about other matters, it is with real satisfac- tion, and without claiming any merit but that of attention to duty, that I can con- clude this Account with an observation, which facts enable me to make, that our having discovered the possibility of pre- serving health amongst a numerous ship's company, for such a length of time, in such varieties of climate, and amid such con- tinued hardships and fatigues, will make this voyage remarkable in the opinion of every benevolent person, when the dis- putes about a Southern Continent shall have ceased to engage the attention, and to divide the judgement of philosophers.

And the Royal Soc ie ty o f L o n d o n , at thei r Anniversary Meeting o f November 30, 1776, p resen ted Captain Cook wi th thei r highest award, the Copley Medal, n o t fo r his discoveries in the S o u th Seas, bu t for the " m o s t useful and mos t success- ful expe r imen ta l i n q u i ry . " The c i ta t ion cont inues :

Now what inquiry can be so useful as that which hath for its object the saving the lives of men? And when shall we find o n e more successful than that before us? Here are no vain boastings of the empiric, nor ingenious and delusive theories of the dog- matist; but a concise, an artless, and an

204 E C O N O M I C B O T A N Y 27 : 2 0 4 - 2 0 9 . A p r i l - J u n e 1 9 7 3 .

incontested relation of the means, by which, under the Divine favour, Captain Cook, with a company o f an hundred and eighteen men, performed a voyage o f three years and eighteen days, throughout all the climates, from fi f ty-two degrees north, to seventy-one degrees south, with the loss o f only one man by a distemper [Pringle's italics ]. What must enhance to us the value of these salutary observations, is to see the practice hath been no less simple than effi- cacious [Cook, 1777 ].

What "at tent ion to my d u t y " did Captain Cook perform, what "practice ...no less simple than efficacious" did he devise which had such spectacular results? Captain Cook was providing a beverage which he called "Sweet-Wort" for his men to drink. Everyone received a pint a day, and anyone with slight symptoms of scurvy was immediately raised to five or six pints. This "Wort" was unfermented beer, an infusion of malted grains, which was made up fresh to his order every day from a supply of ground malt (dried sprouted barley). Captain Cook's reliance on the drink was due largely to the enthu- siasm of two people who did not accom- pany him on the trips at all, Dr. David MacBride and a Mr. Pelham, Secretary to the Commissioners of the Victualing Office. Both of these gentlemen had "made some experiments" in their official capacities and were eager for Captain Cook to try them out in the field. Dr. MacBride's theory was that fresh vege- tables owed their antiscorbutic power to their "f ixed air", or ability to ferment in the bowels, "by the antiseptic powers of which the strong tendency to putrefac- tion in this disease might be corrected" (Rees, 1819). His conclusion was right for the wrong reasons:

GRAIN, after it is malted, differs widely from grain in the crude state;by the germi- nation, drying, and slight torrefaction, its natural viscidity is destroyed, it acquires an agreeable, saccharine taste, and the farina- ceous part is so attenuated as to be ren- dered soluble in water. FRESH Wort, or infusion o f malt, is a liquor similar to the recent juices of the sweet vegetables, fermenting readily like them, and being precisely of the same mild, saponaceous and aperient nature [MacBride, 1768?].

Mr. Pelham, using somewhat the same

reasoning, concluded that " if the juice of malt, either as beer or wort, was inspis- sated by evaporation, it was probable this inspissated juice would keep good at sea; and, if so, a supply of beer might be had, at any time, by mixing it with water" (Cook, 1777). (Beer was considered an effective antiscorbutic, for reasons I shall discuss later.)

Cook had great faith in this concoction, holding it to be much more potent in "antiscorbutic s tuff" than the syrup of evaporated lemon juice with which he was also provided. This last had been reduced to one third of its original volume by boiling for ease in carrying, bu t this pro- cess would have been so destructive to the heat labile Vitamin C that his opinion of it is probably justified. The "Sweet-Wort", made according to Dr. MacBride, prob- ably retained a good portion of this vita- min, and a great deal of the accompanying B-complex factors, which increase the efficiency of Vitamin C's curative powers significantly (Davis, 1965). The surgeon of the Resolution, Mr. Patton, recorded his observations in his medical journal:

I have found the wort of the utmost service in the scorbutic cases during the voyage. As many took it by way of prevention, few cases occurred where it had a fair trial; but these, however, I flatter myself, will be sufficient to convince every impartial person, that it is the best remedy hitherto found out for the cure of the sea scurvy; and I am well convinced from what I have seen the wort perform, and from its mode of operation, that if aided by portable- soup, sour-krout, sugar, sago, and cour- ants, the scurvy, that maritime pestilence, will seldom or never make its alarming appearance among a ship's crew, on the longest voyages... [Cook, 1777 ].

Sir Joseph Banks, the official botanist on the Endeavour, records: "I received great benefit from the use of this mess, it totaly banish'd in me that t roublesome costiveness [constipation] which I believe most people are subject to when at sea" (Beaglehole, 1962). Constipation was an early symptom of scurvy.

The preparation of wort is quite simple, since most of it is done on shore. A quan- t i ty of barley or mixed grains is moistened until it sprouts; when the new leaves have

OLIVER: GERMINATED SEEDS AS ANTISCORBUTICS 205

just begun to appear, a stage well known to the experienced malster, the barley is dried and heated gently to 90-140 ~ F, just enough to inactivate the enzymes which have converted the starch of the grain to sugars. The malt is then ground and stored. Each day on board ship the infusion was freshly prepared; MacBride writes:

. . . the me thod in which it is proposed to prepare the wort, is, to take one measure of the ground malt, and pour it on three measures of boiling water; stir them well, and let the mixture stand, close covered up, for three or four hours; af ter which, strain of f the liquor. I t must be brewed, in hot weather especially, fresh every day, for if it be al lowed to grow vapid, or sourish, it will no t only be unpleasant, but useless, as it would then not run easily into fermenta- t ion; but when perfect ly fresh, there cannot well be a more palatable kind of drink; and I dare say, that , in general, it will sit l ight and easy on the s tomach [Mac- Bride, 1768? ].

The happy chance by which MacBride, for the wrong reasons, stumbled upon a method which preserves the vital anti- scorutic powers was responsible for the success of the voyages.

For MacBride knew nothing of Vitamin C, its instability and the fact that it is water soluble. Had he decided that the best method for preparing wort was to boil the mixture for three or four hours instead of simply steeping it, the wort would have been worthless, for Vitamin C is heat labile. Had he not remarked on the importance of the infusion's being fresh- ly made each day, his theories would have been disproved and not, as he thought, confirmed. Only in this century, when vitamins have been isolated and their functions discovered, can we understand why sweet-wort was so effective as an antiscorbutic. Seeds under the malting, or sprouting, process undergo complex chemical changes: enzyme activity in- creases, starch is converted to sugar, pro- teins are hydrolyzed, and vitamins, especially the water-soluble B-complex and Vitamin C, are synthesized. This combination of circumstances makes germinated seeds an ideal food if Vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins are lacking

in the diet; and the 18th-Century sailor's ration of dried, salted meat and biscuit riddled with weevils was just such a diet.

A considerable amount of research has been done on the vitamin increment of sprouted seeds. Barley has been studied more intensely than other grains because of its importance in brewing, but germi- nated seeds of all types have been studied as possible antiscorbutics well into the 20th Century, even after the chemical synthesis of Vitamin C was accomplished. Very little Vitamin C is found in seeds in the dormant state, although they may be a good source of the B-complex factor; after sprouting, however, Vitamin C has been found in considerable quantity. Mung beans (Phaseolus aureus), from which the majority of Chinese bean sprouts is made, contain only small amounts of ascorbic acid; the germinated seeds contain 1.03 mg of ascorbic acid per gram of dried seed. Lemon juice, which is considered a rich source, contains only .4 mg per gram (Lugg and Weller, 1943). One hundred grams of dry seeds, when sprouted, contains over 100 mgs of Vitamin C (Sreenivasan, 1950); a daily dose of 20 mgs of ascorbic acid will pre- vent scurvy (Dodds, 1959). Raw legume sprouts, then, compare well with lemon juice and tomatoes in their Vitamin C content (Miller, 1928). The grains contain smaller amounts of ascorbic acid initially and after germination, but the amount is certainly adequate for protection. Germi- nated wheat contains .3 mg of ascorbic acid per gram of the original dry seed (Lugg and Weller, 1943). Barley similarly shows a five-fold increase in the Vitamin C content during germination (Pollock, 1962). It must be remembered that the "high-drying" process currently in use during the kilning of malt was not used in the 18th Century; kilning was done manually, and the temperatures reached probably did not exceed 140~ (Rees, 1819). These low temperatures preserved a good portion of the Vitamin C and B-complex, and, consequently, beer fre- quently possessed good antiscorbutic qualities (Smith, 1918). These water- soluble vitamins would pass easily out of the ground malt into the infusion.

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Although some antiscorbutic value was undoubtedly lost in processing and stor- age, there is evidence that preserved malt can contain a large amount of "antiscor- butic stuff" (Gerstenberger, 1921); the copious daily dose of sweet-wort recom- mended by Dr. MacBride provides an additional margin of safety.

Captain Cook's success and the accom- panying publicity should have guaranteed the eradication of scurvy from the seas by the widespread adoption of malted seeds as mandatory foodstuffs on all long sea voyages; curiously, this was not the case, and the antiscorbutic power of sprouted seeds had to be discovered again and again in new crises, well into the 20th Century. It is true that immediately following the famous voyages sweet-wort was in con- stant requisition by the Royal Navy, but in 1796, largely through the efforts of Sir Gilbert Blane, the Board of the Admiralty officially adopted the juice of lemons as the official antiscorbutic of the British Navy, and sweet-wort fell out of regular use (Smith, 1918).

Yet the antiscorbutic powers of malted seeds had already been independently dis- covered again within the 20-year period between Cook's discovery and the adop- tion of lemon juice. C. Curtis, reporting on the observations of Young in India, wrote:

To be sure, we cannot have a kitchen gar- den at sea, and a short and scanty crop of greens can only be raised aboard ship; but beans and peas, and barley, and other seeds can be carried in any quanti ty; and as Mr. Young has very justly stated, any kind of esculent seeds brought under the malting or vegetating process, are converted into the state of a growing plant with the vital principle in full activity throughout the germ and pulp: and if eaten in this state without any sort of preparation, except that of separating or rejecting the husks, cannot fail to supply what is wanted for the cure of scurvy, vis. fresh vegetable chyle [Curtis, 1807].

Curtis's An Account of the Diseases of India as they appeared in the English Fleet, published in Edinburgh in 1807, seems to be an original observation on antiscorbutics and, certainly, represents sounder and less circuitous reasoning than

MacBride's. Young's observation was that the greatest protection comes from "not dead and dried, but fresh vegetable diet, greens or roots, in sufficient quantity". Curtis goes on to record that "the malting process is to be performed in shallow frames of wood, constructed so as to pre- serve the water for successive operations; and a little experience will readily lead to the proper degrees of heat and moisture for conducting it successfully". (It is curious that sprouts should generate so much enthusiasm on the part of their discoverers that many of them devise schemes for growing them in quantity under peculiar or difficult circumstances; the most ingenious example of this will be discussed later).

During the 19th Century, sweet-wort and beer brewed from malt continued to be occasionally used as antiscorbutics on long voyages. The interrupted search for the North-West passage was resumed in 1818, and brewing mechanism, malt and yeast were included in the provisions on these trips. Sir Edward Parry himself attributed great merit to small beer, and many explorers of his time concurred. Whaling vessels, regularly penetrating the arctic, carried malt; like the explorers, they could be detained for months in the ice. When Sir John Franklin went out in 1845, he carried a brewing apparatus and beer was brewed on board ship. Unfor- tunately, by this time "improvements" in the malting process resulted in the de- struction of the essential elements; malt was dried and toasted at high tempera- ture, which unwittingly removed its anti- scorbutic substance (Smith, 1918). Belief in the antiscorbutic merit of beer died hard, though, and Arctic expeditions as late as 1896 carried brewing apparatus, hoping to exploit the antiscorbutic prop- erties that were, alas, completely absent (Allison, 1943).

The early decades of the 20th Century, which saw the beginning of the isolation and identification of vitamins, also saw a revival of the use of germinated seeds as antiscorbutics. Scurvy was probably one of the decisive factors in forcing the sur- render of the British at Kut-el-Amara, Iraq, in the early part of World War I, and

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special scurvy hospitals were established in June, 1916, in Bagdad, Amora, and Basrah (Hess, 1920). Especially among the Indian troops, the problem was acute; the Lister Institute in London began the search for an antiscorbutic which could be easily transported, did not deteriorate quickly, and would not offend the tradi- tional religious and cultural dietary scruples of the typical Indian soldier. The perfect answer was, of course, sprouted seeds. Sprouted lentils (Lens esculenta), known already to the Indian as "masoor dhal", increase in Vitamin C content three to sixfold after 48 hours of germination (Chick and Delf, 1919); at this point, their antiscorbutic value is equal to that of most fresh vegetables.

It appears, however, that sprouted seeds were not actually used until a year later, in Serbia. An enterprising physician, Major H. W. Wiltshire, used sprouted haricot beans as a cure for scorbutic patients in his hospital; he found that 4 oz of germinated beans daily cured scurvy more effectively than 4 oz of fresh raw lemon juice. The beans he used were boiled 10 minutes after being sprouted in "old ration biscuit tins cut in half longi- tudinally and freely perforated with holes". In a spirit of experimental inquiry, he divided his patients into two groups; after four weeks, 70.4% of those given beans were recovered, as opposed to 53.4% on raw lemon juice. He records the Serbs rebellious anger at being forced to eat what they regarded as "pig food", remarking that this attitude "necessitated frequent explanations of their [the beans] function". He closes the article with a long calculation of the quantity of beans required to protect a whole bat- talion of men, including instructions for sprouting in the trenches under fire, and remarks, "Even if no allowance is made for the food value of the beans, the cost of the vitamins supplied by them would still be only 60% of the cost when supplied by lemons". This article, which must be among the most remarkable and imagina- tive medical studies ever published, closes by recommending sprouted seeds as "the easiest and cheapest method" to prevent scurvy in an army in the field (Wiltshire, 1918).

The synthesis of Vitamin C in 1932, one might think, would have rendered all scurvy a thing of the past. In areas of famine and poverty, however, vitamin deficiencies will continue to accompany malnutrition. Famines due to crop fail- ures in the Punjab region of India in 1938 caused an unusually acute famine; hun- dreds of cases of scurvy were reported. In February, 1940, germinated grain began to be used as a prophylactic against the disease. Biweekly issues of 1 oz of dry grain to 200,000 individuals continued for four months. Within the month, there were 1,275 fewer deaths than in the same month the previous year. Only 60 cases were discovered and treated; by March, this figure was down to 9. None was re- ported in May or April. This extremely rapid recovery rate is characteristic of scurvy's response to fresh vegetables; it had been noted for hundreds of years that sailors on the point of death, so weak they had to be carried ashore, would be com- pletely recovered in 4-7 days when given fresh fruits and vegetables ad libitum (Curtis, 1807). The phenomenal success of the experiment, however, was nearly its undoing; in June, grain supplies were reduced and the program progressively diminished until, in September, there were 1,002 more deaths than in the same month the previous year. As the months passed, no relief or germinated grain was given. Scurvy cases reappeared. In Jan- uary, gratuitous grain was reintroduced for 140,000 people. Scurvy cases again dropped to nil (Khan, 1942).

The ration consisted of '~ Chhatak (1 oz) twice a week for each person; wheat, millet or gram (Mung beans) were used. The procedure for producing germination is simple, but, more important, it is famil- iar to the people, since grain in this form is used at certain festivals, and it does not offend religious taboos (Nicol, 1940).

During World War II, the blockade of the English merchant marine resulted in a shortage of citrus fruits which threatened to become serious. Germinated grains as well as wild rose-hip extract were used as prophylactics against scurvy. The Minis- try of Health, in much the same way that the E m e r g e n c y F o o d C o m m i s s i o n

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adopted sprouted soybeans as an alter- native protein source in this country, caused articles to be published in family- type magazines and nontechnical journals about germinating grains in the home and working the sprouts into the diet.

The Chinese knew the remarkable qualities of the sprout; in the earliest Materia Medica, the sprouted seeds are listed separately from the seeds, and a remarkable list of ailments is guaranteed to respond to their application. Sprouts are also a common article of diet in most of Southeast Asia. The Western world, exploiting the properties of germinated seeds only in times of crisis, could perhaps benefit from the efficiency and good sense of the cultural traditions of the East.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Harvard Univer- sity for the use of its facilities, especially the Gray Herbarium, Arnold Arboretum and Economic Botany Libraries. Dr. Charles G. Oliver was very helpful in read- ing and citicizing the manuscript.

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