It is interesting, in the light of the large amount of accumulated knowledge of the etiological factor in scurvy, which the last few years has brought forth, to correlate the history of human scurvy with the changed conditions under which large groups of persons have lived at different times. In very early times the disease attacked chiefly soldiers and prisoners since these were subjected for considerable periods to simple and monotonous diets consisting of dry, cooked or stale foods, chiefly cereal grains and legume seeds. These foods possess high keeping qualities, and are most attractive to those who purvey for large masses of people, especially when transportation or storage is an important item for consideration.

The sailors did not have scurvy until the days of long voyages following the discovery of America. In these voyages they were isolated from fresh foods for weeks or months. With the advent of steam navigation no special precautions have been found necessary for the protection of sea-faring men against this disease, for they frequently have access to fresh food.

Infantile scurvy is not often mentioned in early medical writings. It was not until about the middle of the nineteenth century that it began to attract the attention of medical observers. The cause of this appears clear. Infants were until the last few decades either nursed or invariably lost. The methods of feeding infants that could not be nursed were so crude and unsatisfactory that success in the rearing of them was rare. Not until the eighteenth century was artificial feeding or mixed feeding mentioned in medical literature. Bread and water, called "water pap"; bread and pulse; small beer with egg, etc., were the common foods administered to an infant which had lost its mother. Usually the unfortunate one died from intestinal infection or inanition before it had time to develop scurvy.

In 1894 Barlow first described a diseased condition which we now know to be a complication of rickets with scurvy in infants, and the syndrome became known by his name. He states that the disease was new in England, but more common in Germany, and that it appeared to be on the increase both in England and America. This paper is the earliest and best description of scurvy in infants, and is one of the classics of medical literature.