Ioannis Vuieri medicarum observationum rararum Liber I

the most excellent physician Balduinus Ronffeus, joined to me by no ordinary bond of friendship.

Among the more recent writers, Olaus Magnus, a Swede by nation, describes scurvy sufficiently in his History of the Northern Peoples, book 16, chapter 51, although in many places he has otherwise not been ashamed of fictions. These are his own words: "There is also a camp disease that vexes the besieged and the enclosed: such, indeed, that the fleshy members, thickened by a certain numbness and as if melting like wax from subcutaneous rot, yield to the pressure of fingers; and it makes the teeth numb as if they were about to fall out; it renders the colors of the skin from white to blue, and induces torpor with a nausea for taking medicines; and it is called in the common language of the nation 'Scorbuk,' in Greek 'cachexia,' perhaps from the subcutaneous rotting softness, which seems to be fostered by the eating of salted, undigested foods and the cold exhalation of walls. But it will not have such force where the walls are covered on the inside with planks of any wood whatsoever. Moreover, if this disease rages for a long time, to ward it off with continuous wormwood drink, just as they are wont to remove the roots of stones through the decoction of old beer with butter." Likewise, book 9, chapter 38: "They seize supplies, he says, by strength in the first years, finally (the soldier being diminished by continuous slaughters), [and] by the arts, wiles, and ambushes of the besiegers, especially livestock, which they take with them and place to graze on the grassy roofs of the houses, lest by the lack of fresh meats they incur a disease sadder than any illness, called in the native tongue 'Scorbuck':"