Cod Save the King

How Cod Saved the Vikings
I almost feel guilty about posting Veritasium videos. Almost every one he produces is great, so great that I can't really add much, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

The title on this one is poor. It might be better to call it How Cod Made the Vikings. He ties rickets, vitamin D and cod liver oil together. I remember hearing about rickets and cod liver oil a long time ago, but I never realized there was a connection, probably because rickets was never an issue. I'm taking vitamin D now. My wife recommended it.

Siege of Paris 885 - Jean-Victor Schnetz 1835

The bit about the Vikings laying seige to Paris was new to me, likewise the reason for the failure of the Viking's Greenland colony and

Scurvy

the British experiments to find a cure for scurvy:

However, it was not until 1747 that James Lind formally demonstrated that scurvy could be treated by supplementing the diet with citrus fruit, in one of the first controlled clinical experiments reported in the history of medicine. As a naval surgeon on HMS Salisbury, Lind had compared several suggested scurvy cures: hard cider, vitriol, vinegar, seawater, oranges, lemons, and a mixture of balsam of Peru, garlic, myrrh, mustard seed and radish root. In A Treatise on the Scurvy (1753) Lind explained the details of his clinical trial and concluded "the results of all my experiments was, that oranges and lemons were the most effectual remedies for this distemper at sea.”

I did know that the Brits originated the regimented use of citrus, I just didn't know how that came to pass.