not muster at the last above
six foremast-men in a watch that were capable of duty.

This disease, so frequent in long voyages, and so particularly
destructive to us, is surely the most singular and unaccountable of
any that affects the human body. Its symptoms are innumerable and
inconstant, and its progress and effects singularly irregular, for
scarcely have any two persons complaints exactly resembling each
other; and where there have been, some conformity in the symptoms,
the order of their appearance has been totally different. Though
it frequently puts on the form of many other diseases, and is not
therefore to be described by any exclusive and infallible criterions,
yet there are some symptoms which are more general than the rest, and
of more frequent and constant occurrence, and which therefore deserve
a more particular enumeration. These common appearances are large
discoloured spots dispersed over the whole surface of the body,
swelled legs, putrid gums, and, above all, an extraordinary
lassitude of the whole body, especially after any exercise, however
inconsiderable and this lassitude at last degenerates into a proneness
to swoon, and even to die, on the least exertion of strength, or even
on the least motion. This disease is usually attended, also, by a
strange dejection of spirits, with shiverings, tremblings, and
a disposition to be seized with the most dreadful terrors on the
slightest accident. Indeed it was most remarkable, in all our
reiterated experience of this malady, that whatever discouraged our
people, or at any time damped their hopes, never failed to add new
vigour to the distemper, for such usually killed those who were in the
last stages of the disease, and confined those to their hammocks who
were before capable of some kind of duty, so that it seemed as if
alacrity of mind and sanguine hopes were no small preservatives from
its fatal malignity.

But it is not easy to complete the long roll of the various
concomitants of this disease; for it often produced putrid fevers,
pleurisies, jaundice, and violent rheumatic pains, and sometimes
occasioned obstinate costiveness, which was generally attended with a
difficulty of breathing, and this was esteemed the most deadly of
all the scorbutic symptoms. At other times the whole body, but
more especially the legs, were subject to ulcers of the worst kind,
attended by rotten bones, and such a luxuriance of fungous flesh as
yielded to no remedy. T