The scurvy guinea pigs
QUESTION Is scurvy a disease that affects only humans?
SCURVY is caused by a prolonged deficiency of vitamin C, leading to weakness, anaemia, gum disease and skin haemorrhages.
Unlike humans, most animals can synthesise their own vitamin C, so are not susceptible to scurvy. Exceptions are gorillas, chimps and some monkeys; some fish, birds and bats; and guinea pigs.
Scurvy was once the scourge of the Royal Navy. After too many months at sea on rations of salt pork, hard tack (salty crackers) and rum, sailors began to get sick.
They would first break out in red spots, caused by bleeding under the skin, then start losing their teeth and their gums would bleed.
Finally, they would suffer mood swings and depression.
In 1747, Scottish doctor James Lind discovered scurvy could be treated by supplementing the sailors’ diet with citrus fruit, but it wasn’t until the Twenties that Albert Szent-Gyorgyi identified vitamin C (ascorbic acid) deficiency as the cause.
Vitamin C is required for making the protein collagen, which maintains blood vessels, forms bone and heals wounds.
For guinea pigs the inability to synthesise vitamin C is not a problem in the wild where there are lots of plants for them to eat. Problems arise in captivity if they are given a limited diet, with vitamin Cdeficient guinea pigs suffering bleeding gums and swollen joints. Guinea pig food pellets are fortified with vitamin C.
Vitamin C deficiency in other species causes different problems. In aquarium fish, it can lead to broken back disease, where the backbone is deformed.
There is concern about the high incidence of heart disease in captive gorillas — it’s been estimated that one in three has the condition — and research has suggested vitamin C deficiency might be the cause. Dr Ken Bristow, Glasgow.
QUESTION Do any golf courses span two countries?
YOU can play a round of golf in England
and Wales at Llanymynech golf club on the Shropshire/Powys border.
It sits on top of a hill fort thought to be where the Britons, under Catuvellauni chief Caractacus, made their last stand against the Romans.
Running through the golf course is offa’s Dyke, the 150-mile earthwork up to 8ft high that stretches along the border between Wales and England. It was built by the eighth century Anglo-Saxon king of the same name.
on the fourth hole you tee off in Wales and putt out in England. The fifth and sixth holes are in England before you head back into Wales on the seventh tee. Llanymynech was where 1991 Masters champion Ian Woosnam learned to play golf — the irons he used to win at Augusta National are on display.
Another golf course that spans two countries is Tornio, on the river delta of the Tornio river on the border of northern Finland and Sweden. The course has 11 holes in Sweden and seven in Finland. You can hit the longest hole-in-one in the world on the sixth hole — the ball will fly for one hour and five seconds because of the time difference between Sweden and Finland as the borderline lies on the sixth green.
Aran Carter, Welshpool, Powys.
QUESTION What was the fate of Mussolini’s son from his first marriage?
FURTHER to the previous answer, which described the suspected murder of Mussolini’s eldest son Benito Albino in an asylum aged 26, it is incorrect to say the future Italian fascist leader was fired from Avanti!, the Italian socialist party newspaper, because he wanted war.
In 1913-14, communist and socialist parties hoped war would be so destructive that the governments which had started it would be overthrown.
Mussolini, a socialist firebrand before World War I, was fired because he wrote an editorial in August 1914 calling for Italy’s ‘absolute neutrality’. Gerry Dorrian, author of Brexit And Democracy, Fulbourn, Cambs.
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