Drimys Winteri - History

History

When Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world in 1577-80, of the four ships accompanying the Golden Hind at the outset, the only ship that successfully rounded Cape Horn with him was the Elizabeth, captained by John Winter; the two ships separated in a storm and Winter turned back. Presumably he had sickness on board, for he sent a boat ashore to search out medicinal herbs. He returned in 1579 with a supply of Drimys bark, and for centuries before vitamin C was isolated, "Winter's Bark" was esteemed as a preventive and remedy for scurvy— correctly so, for a tisane of D. winteri sustained Captain James Cook and his crew in the South Pacific, and the naturalist accompanying his voyage of exploration, Johann Reinhold Forster, was the first to officially describe and name D. winteri.

Read more about this topic:  Drimys Winteri

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.
    Terry Hands (b. 1941)

    All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.
    Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)