Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C. Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding from the skin may occur. As scurvy worsens, there can be poor wound healing, personality changes, and finally death from infection or bleeding.
Vitamins are organic molecules that are essential to an organism in small quantities for proper metabolic function. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism in sufficient quantities for survival, and therefore must be obtained through the diet. For example, vitamin C can be synthesized by some species but not by others; it is not considered a vitamin in the first instance but is in the second. Most vitamins are not single molecules, but groups of related molecules called vitamers. For example, there are eight vitamers of vitamin E: four tocopherols and four tocotrienols.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Self-surgery is the act of performing a surgical procedure on oneself. It can be an act taken in extreme circumstances out of necessity, an attempt to avoid embarrassment, legal action, or financial costs, or a rare manifestation of a psychological disorder.
Sir Alexander Armstrong was an Irish naval surgeon, explorer, naturalist and author. After obtaining a medical degree he joined the Royal Navy and was stationed on board HMS Investigator, tasked with finding the lost expedition of explorer Sir John Franklin. Investigator was trapped in the ice at Mercy Bay in 1851 and Armstrong spent several winters in the Arctic before he returned to London.
Kenneth Kamler is an American orthopedic microsurgeon trained at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, who practices surgery of the hand in New York and extreme medicine in some of the most remote regions on Earth.
Alistair Forbes Mackay was a Scottish physician, biologist, and polar explorer known for being the first, along with Australians Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, to reach the South Magnetic Pole on 16 January 1909, during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907–1909.
The DiscoveryExpedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–1843). Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.
Lieutenant Colonel Eric Marshall was a British Army doctor and Antarctic explorer with the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907–09, and was one of the party of four men who reached Furthest South at 88°23′S162°00′E on 9 January 1909.
Inspector-General Belgrave Ninnis was a Royal Navy surgeon, surveyor, Arctic explorer, and leading Freemason, from London. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of St Andrews in 1861, and the same year entered the navy as an Assistant Surgeon. From 1864 to 1866, Ninnis served as part of a surveying expedition to the Northern Territory of South Australia, helping to chart the area to the west of the Adelaide River and returning biological specimens to Adelaide for study. In 1867 Ninnis was appointed to Greenwich Hospital, and in 1875 he joined the British Arctic Expedition under Captain Sir George Nares, serving as Staff-Surgeon on HMS Discovery. When disease spread among the expedition's dogs, Ninnis was charged with investigating the cause; his findings later formed the basis of a published work. At the conclusion of the expedition in 1876 he received the Arctic Medal for his service, and was promoted to Fleet-Surgeon.
Perce Blackborow (1896–1949) was a Welsh sailor and a stowaway on Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
James Archibald McIlroy was a British surgeon and a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton's crew on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1916).
Alexander Hepburne Macklin was a Scottish physician who served as one of the two surgeons on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. In 1921–1922, he joined the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition aboard the Quest. He was also a dog trainer and quartermaster on Shackleton’s expeditions.
Ernest Edward Mills Joyce AM was a Royal Naval seaman and explorer who participated in four Antarctic expeditions during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, in the early 20th century. He served under both Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. As a member of the Ross Sea party in Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Joyce earned an Albert Medal for his actions in bringing the stricken party to safety, after a traumatic journey on the Great Ice Barrier. He was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being his contemporary, Frank Wild.
Leonard Duncan Albert Hussey, OBE was an English meteorologist, archaeologist, explorer, medical doctor and member of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic and Shackleton–Rowett Expeditions. During the latter, he was with Shackleton at his death, and transported the body part-way back to England.
Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor is an American physician, engineer, and NASA astronaut. She visited the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 56/57. After returning, she transitioned to a management role within NASA, where she handles medical issues aboard the station.
Wilderness medicine is a medical specialty concerned with medical care in remote, wilderness and expedition environments. The specialty includes prior planning, public health issues, a number of sub-specialties as well as responding to emergencies. One modern definition of wilderness medicine is "medical care delivered in those areas where fixed or transient geographic challenges reduce the availability of, or alter requirements for, medical or patient movement resources".
Illnesses and injuries during space missions are a range of medical conditions and injuries that may occur during space flights. Some of these medical conditions occur due to the changes withstood by the human body during space flight itself, while others are injuries that could have occurred on Earth's surface. A non-exhaustive list of these conditions and their probability of occurrence can be found in the following sources:
Sean Kevin Roden was a NASA flight surgeon with multiple roles for medical operations including for the International Space Station (ISS) from 2004 to 2007.
Sledging rations are a type of meal consumed by members of polar expeditions. These rations are designed for the use of sledging parties travelling long distances without support vehicles. They are meant to be calorically dense and provide a balanced diet. They must optimize weight and portability, as well as nutritional benefit. Typically, sledging rations are dehydrated to cut down on weight.
