Scott and Scurvy
http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

One of the most striking features of the disease is the disproportion between its severity and the simplicity of the cure. Today we know that scurvy is due solely to a deficiency in vitamin C, a compound essential to metabolism that the human body must obtain from food. Scurvy is rapidly and completely cured by restoring vitamin C into the diet.

scurvy bad, science hard : "We tend to think that knowledge, once acquired, is something permanent. Instead, even holding on to it requires constant, careful effort."