Deployment Psychology Blog

From the late 1760’s through 1780, Captain James Cook and his small fleet had fantastic adventures. His ships were small with relatively light crews who did not have particularly good health practices (this was the late 1700’s, so we’ll give them a pass since toothpaste and masculine-scented body wash weren’t invented yet). Yet, they circumnavigated the globe multiple times, visiting exotic locations like Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti, and Alaska.  Captain Cook and his crew are mostly remembered for their intrepid voyages and consequent additions to English sea charts, but they also achieved something even more remarkable for sailors at the time: almost none of them died of scurvy (Berwick, 2003) . How did he do it? He forced everyone on his ships to eat sauerkraut every day.